


A Wolf in the Rose Garden

by Metamorphiac



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Biting, Blood Drinking, Diplomacy, Drama & Romance, F/M, Family Drama, Fantasy, Gaslamp Fantasy, High Fantasy, Hurt/Comfort, Magic, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Negotiations, Original Fiction, Original Universe, POV Alternating, POV Female Character, POV Male Character, POV Third Person Limited, Politics, Resolved Sexual Tension, Royalty, Scratching, Sexual Content, Star-crossed, Woman on Top, Women In Power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-07
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:09:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 28,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21693208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Metamorphiac/pseuds/Metamorphiac
Summary: It has been months since Mortos has invaded the country of Odaka, kickstarting a war between the armies of Occassi who seek to lay claim to new territory and the Solarites who are determined to protect what's theirs.As war between these colossal powers continues to rage, Capiton Darius Calantis, the bastard son of the Mortesian rex, flees to seek sanctuary within the gates of the royal Solarite chateau. His motive? To depose his imperialist father and install himself as the new rex in his stead and he is more than willing to throw his lot in with foreign powers in order to do so.As Crown Princess of Soleterea, Laila Rose is more than accustomed to being at the helm of the chateau, micromanaging all that goes on within its walls as her mother tends to her continental duties.What happens when these two very strong personalities clash and are forced to resolve their pasts and differences for the sake of mutually benefitting aims?
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 1





	1. Honey

Laila rises at dawn to eat breakfast with her mother. It is a practice she has been increasingly performing the further she becomes estranged from the concept of sleep. Though one would not think that someone with such a hedonistic disposition as herself would be prone to early rising, she’s found that she’s always been fondest of that liminal space in time between dusk and dawn. Those are the enigmatic hours where she can slowly watch the world shake itself of its own slumber and pretend for once that she might be the only one alive in the world. 

The garden is saturated in a thick, honey-lacquered gold from the lethargic rays of the rising sun. They seat themselves in a little nook underneath an untamed shrub of wisteria; its heavily perfumed branches offering them shelter from the most penetrating rays. The wrought iron table is neatly laid with offerings of pastries smothered in icing sugar and warm spiced bread with an ornate tea set of decoratively frosted glass and gilded rimming. 

Laila helps herself to a honeycomb from one of the plates and takes a bite, the sweet nectar practically oozing into her palm the moment she touches it. She finishes it messily and sucks her fingers, all the while aware of her mother’s disapproving stare as she does so. 

“You couldn’t have picked something less messy for breakfast?” she critiques with a cluck of her tongue before wrapping her coral-pink lips around her teacup. “Just look at what you’ve done to your chest.”

Laila glances down with a slightly amused look at the trails of slick that had slithered their way down her neckline. “I think my breasts caught the worst of it.”

Her mother makes a disgruntled, back-of-the-throat sound and unfolds one of the rose-shaped napkins with one swift flick of her wrist. “Hold still.”

She is used to this. Of having her mother puppeteer her like a marionette at the end of her strings. So hold still she does as her mother diligently clears her chest of honey, her forehead delicately creased in focus, before choosing for her the much cleaner option of a slice of warm bread to slather with lemon jam. 

Laila chooses not to protest the forcefulness of this gesture and takes a small, appeasing bite out of the corner of her bread. “I hear we had another rush of refugees pouring in from Odaka. At this point, I fear that their numbers will begin to eclipse the number of houses that we can offer them. I’m doing the best I can to prevent people from having to camp out in fields but… it’s been strenuous, to say the least.”

“I’ve noticed,” her mother quips as she places the sullied napkin to one side. “I hate to say it esteile but you’ve been looking rather peaky recently. That isn’t to say it isn’t an important task you’ve been undertaking but, well. Perhaps it’s too much for you.”

She flushes in offence and at once regrets the momentary sliver of vulnerability she’d left exposed to her mother. As impératrice, she was not one to indulge displays of weakness, especially not from her. “I’m managing.” 

“But didn’t you just mention-”

“It’s  _ fine _ , maman,” she presses, taking care to sand over any rough edges of aggression in her tone lest her mother finds another point of attack. “I am very grateful that you have trusted me enough to bestow upon me such an immense task. I don’t want to imply that I am not. I do apologise. Let us move on to other matters...”

Thankfully, a reprieve in this relentless interrogation makes itself known as a Lightshield guard encroaches upon their private little alcove.

“Your Luminosity,” the guard dips low on one knee before coming to rise again. “My apologies for the intrusion but I have received word that an Occassi has approached our gates to demand entrance. One Darius Calantis from Mortos. How should we proceed?”

“Darius-?” Laila near sputters in disbelief. What on earth would the bastard son of the Mortesian rex be doing in the pulsing heart of the enemy territory?

“Well, that is  _ interesting _ ,” her mother considers, taking another delicate sip of tea. “I suppose you have already apprehended and detained him.” 

“Almost at once, Your Luminosity, as soon as we verified his identity.”

Her mother taps the rim of her glass with one finger. “Have him brought before me in the audience room. I’d like to question this… Occassi prince.”

The word prince was voiced with a certain amount of ironic derision for as a bastard Darius had been catapulted out of the line of succession to be replaced by his trueborn brother. It was a point of contention that Laila always knew lay buried between them on the rare occasions she happened to be in both their presences. But to have him here? Now? When he almost ought to be leading the charges of the Odakan occupation? Something did not add up.

“I’d like to be present also, maman,” she finds herself asserting before she can stifle it. She then lowers her eyes in deference. 

Her mother slants her head to one side, considering. “How well do you know this Darius Calantis?”

“Not very well at all, I’m afraid,” she admits, for the most she could recall in her memories of him was just how winter-famished his apathy was in moments she was around him. It unnerved her somewhat, how brittle and hard he could be in the face of her attempts to defrost him (for Dominus’ sake, she told herself. But it always bothered her when she met a target impervious to her charms). 

“Still you were… intimate with his brother at one point.” Her mother’s nose wrinkles in distaste. “Perhaps having you around might make him more amenable.” 

Somehow she doubts it, but she is willing to exploit any opening she can receive to be inside that room. “I can certainly try.”

Thus they clear the table to make their way towards the audience room where her mother seats herself upon her Solar throne, named in part for the gilt carvings of sun rays that ringed around the head of the chair, while Laila makes herself comfortable on one of the benches inlaid with mother-of-pearl. 

She fiddles absently with the lace trimming on her sleeves, finding herself nervous at the prospect of being before an Occassi again after how disastrously her last encounter with one ended. When she had- 

_ No. Not now _ . She refuses entry to the memory that claws at the edge of her mind and exhales a soft breath to steady herself again. She suppresses further the niggling insect crawl of her nerves as it creeps up her spine when the doors finally open to declare entry to several Lightshields with a cuffed Darius escorted amongst them.

For a creature in chains, he seems relatively untroubled by his condition. In fact, he wears his chains with a certain amount of leonine composure, as though it was he who submitted to this treatment for the comfort and safety of others rather than being the subject of an arrest. 

A Lightshield nudges him forcefully in the back and he descends to his knees.

“Your Luminosity,” he greets her mother with the appropriate amount of decorum.

“You may rise, Darius Calantis,” she grants.

He does so, something wolfish edging into the curve of his lips. “I admit these are not quite the circumstances I would’ve picked for our meeting.” He gestures to his chained hands.

“You can understand our hesitation at greeting an Occassi at the gates, considering the circumstances as of now.” Her periwinkle eyes narrow considerably. “While your father marches upon one of our states with the intent to conquer.” 

“An action I most certainly do not agree with, hence my arrival.”

Her mother does not believe him. She can see it in her eyes. She isn’t even sure she believes it herself.

Her mother expels a derisive snort of laughter. “You can imagine I find that difficult to fathom considering your relative position in the country.”

“Yes, as a bastard,” Darius replies flatly, “overlooked and disregarded, though I’m sure it may look rather different on the outside. Truth be told I have all but declared myself as a deserter just by coming here. Should I return to Mortos, it certainly won’t be into open arms.”

“And why take that risk?”

He tilts his head, his blue eyes practically scintillating in their brightness. “Because I recognise an opportunity when I see one.”

Laila looks at her mother looking at him and though they are both unmoved from their positions they both hold the predatory demeanour of having circled one another to see which angle was best to strike from.

“And what opportunity is that, pray tell?” her mother prompts.

“The way I see it we both happen to have a mutual enemy,” Darius declares, “you would like for my father to cease in his occupation of Odaka and I would also… though perhaps for varying reasons, I admit.”

“Such as?”

“I’ve spent a lot of time at the behest of my father analysing whether or not Vysteria is sensible to attack. I happened to conclude that it was not a safe bet. My father… did not take kindly to such a conclusion. In the end, we parted ways due to such an ideological difference and I escaped in order to prevent being forced into conscription.”

“Desertion is a capital crime in Mortos, Capiton Calantis,” her mother says, her face enamelled with wary. 

“So it is.”

“That’s a lot of risk to be taking simply for an ideological difference.”

“I care about my country, I’d rather not see it fall into ruin by the hands of one power-hungry despot,” Darius reveals this with a mere shrug of his shoulders. “If that means I ally with a foreign force in order to depose him so be it.”

“Ah, so it is a coup you are suggesting,” her mother says, taking her chin in hand between thumb and forefinger. “Come over to me, Capiton Calantis.”

He walks over to her in brisk, confident strides as he scales up the steps to stand before her on the throne. Now up close to her mother, the prodigious build that the Occassi are known for is even more pronounced. He towers over her like a monument. 

“Kneel.”

He descends to one knee before her.

Her mother hooks her finger beneath his chin and tilts it up to face her before cupping his cheeks in her palms. She held him so delicately. Laila almost thought she could’ve been touching her. Then she sees the light in her palms become infused inside him, irradiating his skin with a divine glow as plumes of white smoke coiled around his temples.

He hisses in agony but to his credit, he does not pull away.

“Light illuminates, Darius Calantis, it reveals the truth no matter how you may try to obscure it.” Her mother speaks calmly over his strained grunts. “Swear to me that all you have told me is your truth.”

“ _ I swear _ .” The words come hauled from him like she had plucked them from his tongue by force. “ _ All I desire is to see my father off the throne. Nothing more. _ ”

She releases him with a smile, her handprints having left deep impressions in the hollows of his cheeks. “Then we may just have a place for you yet.” She gestures to one of the guards. “Take him away but not to a cell. I intend to have our new guest in comfortable dwellings. The Moon Tower, perhaps.”

Once the Lightshields had extracted him from the room, her mother turns towards her. 

“Illumination does not fail but still I mistrust this creature.” She strokes her thumb and forefinger together in deliberation. “I want you to watch this Occassi for me, Laila. Stay very close to him. He shall have guards of course but as Crown Princess, I consider him to be under your supervision.”

Laila’s answering declaration is resolute. “I shan’t let you down, maman.”

“See to it that you don’t.”


	2. Moon

The Moon Tower is a slender column of pale-coloured marble shunned to the outskirts of the main palace structure. There it is poised, quite diaphanously, between the rose gardens and the palace vineyard. Though quite an insubstantial building at first blink, its main benefits come in the form of its lofty, sky-caressing height and its endless rows of staircases that are enchanted to transfer directions, making it so that however far the occupant spirals down they will always somehow be redirected into their room. By day it is stained pink with the hue of a newborn’s blush while the evening dyes it violet through the circulatory migration of the sun’s cycle. 

Darius peers out of the lone window in the sitting room to the microscopic view of the grounds below. It doesn’t take him long to conclude that simply climbing out would only result in the inevitable shattering of every bone in his skeleton. Even if he should heal, it would not take long for a guard to locate him while he does so. 

He takes a sip of the peppermint tea lightly flavoured with squeezed lemon he’d requested and considers his current predicament. Amira had quickly put him to work as an informant and he’d entertained a revolving door of envoys who arrived to collect whatever morsels of information he was able to feed them about his father’s armies, strategies and weaknesses. He’d been all but happy to oblige, wanting to prove himself, but it is the grant for mutant creation that he so desperately desires. 

He knows that several Odakan occultists are among the refugee rosters, having been the first to leave (his father’s first order had been a mass purging of the intellectuals once he had taken Odaka). It didn’t take much of a guess to consider that they might have come to Soleterea considering its proximity to their homeland. Should he be able to immerse himself the community of intelligentsia here he knows that the stunted, withering sprout that is his experimental mind will certainly thrive in a way he was always inhibited from doing in Mortos. 

So he waits and he bides his time, playing the part of the domesticated monster until such an opportunity should arise for him to take his first bite into. 

He hears the elusive patter of light-footed steps on the stairwell and places his teacup on the saucer, straightening his lapels to prepare for another guest. He catches the scent of her before he sees her, that warm heady aroma of white florals and vanilla before she appears as a vision in  [ lavender tulle ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/125609765@N07/16091256069/in/photostream/lightbox/) and remains courteously at the door.

“Your Radiance.” He bows his head in greeting. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Laila fiddles absently with her fingers, brushing a few wheat-gold curls from her temple. “Just came to check how you were settling in. Whether you… needed anything additional to suit your needs.”

“That’s very gracious of you, Your Radiance, but I’m fine.” The corner of his mouth inches up wryly. “Your mother has chosen an impeccable setting for my confinement.”

Her forehead creases in displeasure. “I know this may seem like a rather unconventional arrangement but you are not a prisoner here.”

“You have a habit of locking up your guests in towers?”

“That is only at my mother’s discretion until we can ascertain your reliability. I’m sure you can understand.” Her tone has taken on a serrated edge to the otherwise pristine primness. “But if you’d rather not have me here I suppose I shall take my leave.”

She pivots on her heel with a dismissive toss of butter-yellow hair past her shoulder. He watches her turn from him as though he is little more to her than a speckle of dust in the room and it irks him, her haughty, high-handed manner, that he finds himself unable to contain the urge to call her back.

“Wait,” he implores just as she edges the stairway. He scratches down the bridge of his nose with one finger and gestures towards the settee. “Stay a little while… if you’d please, Your Radiance. It would bring me some measure of comfort to have a familiar face.”

She gives him a cryptic glance over her shoulder for an extended pause before she turns and drapes herself elegantly atop the settee.

“I wouldn’t have thought you’d consider me a familiar face, Capiton Calantis.” Her head gives an inquisitive sparrow tilt as though she awaits elaboration.

He moves towards the table to pour her tea into an empty cup.

“Well, we at least have a mutual connection in common in the form of Dominus.” He hands her the cup which she accepts graciously.

Her face clouds with a negative emotion. “I’d… rather not discuss him.”

“Oh, of course. I can imagine that must be a sensitive topic considering the circumstances.” He sits beside her and pitches his arm over the top of the settee. “What would you rather we discuss?”

She puffs lightly at the steam from her cup and takes a sip. “Why did you come here?”

“I thought I explained myself quite well to your mother.”

“But why did you come  _ here _ ? To Soleterea?” She puts her cup down in the saucer. “Surely if it’s a coup you want it would’ve made much more sense to gather support in your homeland.”

“I would not have been able to rally enough arms to challenge my father in the middle of a conflict and… I’m not much popular as a candidate to the throne in Mortos, suffice it to say. The people love my father and embrace Dominus as the heir. This way was the only one I could think of that I might be able to pull this off.”

“You’ve been thinking about that for a while, haven’t you?” she asks, a secretive little smile tugging at her gloss-slicked mouth. “Ways in which you might accomplish a usurpation.” 

It was an astute observation and he can sense she is just as much a savant at reading people as her mother is. He would have to remember this.

He gives her a blithe lift of his shoulder. “When you have an eternity to live you start to daydream a few things.”

“Dominus always said you burned with resentment for him. I guess I never realised just how much. He always thought highly of you though…”

“I thought we weren’t discussing him?”

She pauses, her lips pursing in displeasure before she breaks through it with a smile. “Fair.” She takes a long sip from her tea. “So what is it that you intend to do next?”

“Offer as much intelligence as I can to your mother’s cause. And then I might broach the topic of mutant creation.”

Her brow arches. “Mutants?”

“Mutated weapons of biological warfare that I can put to use in destroying the hordes of Occassi dominators.”

“That’s rather… well, I don’t know what my mother is going to make of that.”

“I think they could come of use considering our physiological capabilities. We are about evenly matched so I’d say you need something a little extra to give us the edge.”

Her lips quirk downwards in agreement. “It’s not an unreasonable idea, perhaps I’ll bring it up in some circles myself.”

His eyes narrow, jaw flexing in wary. “And what do you want in return?”

“Just to get to know you a little better. You were often so taciturn to me in Mortos that I feel that we didn't get to properly forge a connection. And well, I suppose you could always do with a friend here. Someone to speak in your corner.”

She looks at him with large, rounded eyes that are improbably doe-like, tinged in a cornflower hue, and for a moment he finds himself wanting to invest in her innocence. He knows better though. 

“Why not?” he says, for if she is determined to reel him near then he might as well let her. Though he would not be an easy catch to contain.

She turns her features up into a smile that immediately sets aglow the entirety of her face and at once he understands how Dominus had so easily been made a fool for her — being on the receiving end of a smile like that. 

“Until we meet at another time, Capiton Calantis.” She rises from the seat then, smoothing down her skirts of tulle before departing from the room with one last furtive glance directed at him before she vanishes.


	3. Book

She moves like a slip of linen in the breeze beneath the desaturated glow of moonlight. At midnight, the Moon Tower has been transformed — stained with the tenebrous ink of deep indigo. But there are still glimmers of iridescence that blink in and out of existence from the crystalline bricks of marble.

Laila arrives at this narrow tower as a star on a mission, having been prompted through a discussion with Lucrèce Mielette — a Solarite occultist who had expressed some interest in knowing more about the mutant creation that Darius had discussed with her. Until they could secure an alliance with Seraj, progress in the war with the Occassi had been all but brought to a standstill. Thus they required the aforementioned ‘edge’ that Darius had alluded to, loath as her mother was to admit to it. 

It is this understanding that had her attempting to breach the security of the tower for entrance. Though there are little defences besides a handful of Lightshield guards patrolling the area, it is magic that she will need to gain access. At the request of her mother, the Moon Tower’s design had made it so it is impervious to most forms of sorcery but for those considered ‘high-level’ enough to breach it. Fortunately for her, Laila is considered among that roster, so it doesn’t take her much to slip through the walls as she administers an enchantment to make her both invisible and intangible. 

From there she takes to the stairs, keeping her footsteps light and soft even though they are unlikely to be heard. She knows it is unlikely that Lucrèce will ever agree to entertain an intellectual dialogue with an Occassi, even a treacherous one, but perhaps if she can just show evidence of his work and the potential effectiveness of his ideas then she may yet become more open to chance. 

She conquers the last of the steps and enters the sitting room, finding it dark. Still, a sheer veil of moonlight had slipped its way in from the window and magnified the pearlescent sheen that had given the tower its namesake. All the furnishings had been finely carved from mother-of-pearl and chiselled with celestial motifs that she now traces as she passes by one of the cabinets to begin her snooping.

It does not escape her that Darius would be unlikely to show his work to an interested party without him present. So she decided that instead, she will take matters into her own hands and procure anything of note that she can later return under the cloak of obscurity. 

She releases a soft grunt of annoyance when she discovers the cabinet bare and again when she rifles through any other storage the room provides.

“Where are you hiding it?” she mutters under her breath and feels her shoulders sag at the realisation that she may need to enter his bedroom.

She stalks silently into the darkened chambers only to find him thankfully asleep. Under the influence of slumber, all the sharpness in his features seemed to have been smoothed away, leaving only the exquisite carvings of his fine visage.

She tries not to look too hard at him as she sucks in the breath that had been momentarily stolen by the sight of his beauty. She does not think it fair that a creature so despicable should come in so lovely a shape.

She dispenses with the thought, reminding herself that this is Dominus’ brother she was having such ponderings about and continues with her task.

Prying open the crystal knobs of his wardrobe she nudges along the satin-cushioned hangers finding garments of fine silk, linen and floral-patterned velvet with leather brogues stringently aligned along the bottom. She scrunches her mouth to one side, seeing little of note but how tasteful his sense of style is and is confronted with the tugging impulse to admit defeat.

One last area remains in the form of a Mortesian [ cassone ](https://collectionapi.metmuseum.org/api/collection/v1/iiif/201802/461992/main-image) made of polished walnut and inlaid with grotesque relieves. Laila approaches the dour-looking chest with caution pricking at her spine, something primal in her knowing that there sits before her an object of eldritch origin. 

She reaches out a hand, snatching it back suddenly with the quickness of elastic, and chastises herself derisively for her nerves as she opens it to uncover the contents inside. The chest is filled to the brim with calfskin tomes and parchments yellowed from age, tied with velvet bows. She reaches inside to unravel one and finds handwritten correspondence in Mortesian penned by Darius’ elegant script. 

She puts it away and reaches for a book next, finding it is locked by a strange, vine-like contraption that slithers and writhes when she lifts it. The facade of the book is patterned with archaic symbols that she realises are manoeuvrable when she touches one. Slowly, she twists the carving of an eye, causing the vines that surround it to squirm in protest—

“Didn’t your mother ever warn you against snooping?”

Her heart plummets, but before she can think to move he’s already shattered through her enchantment and taken her in hand — pulling her body flush against his.

She drops the book with a loud clatter onto the floor and braces her hands against his chest. “I wasn’t snooping, I was just—”

“Trying to steal my life’s work?” he finishes for her, “I’m hurt. And here I thought you wanted for us to be friends.”

It is now that she is touching him that she realises that he is naked but for his drawers — his skin a silken barrier that encases muscles of hard steel. She can feel the flex of them against her and it goes through her like a shockwave. Not out of fear. Not for him. For she knows that if she needs to, she can easily demobilise him with a shock.

“Now… what do you have to say for yourself?”

She sends a pulse of electricity through him, feeling him flinch before her power. She will never tire of feeling a body do that. “Unhand me, first.”

His fingers spring free of her arms as he takes a step back with his hands lifted in acquiescence. 

“My intent was not to steal from you. I was only trying to put in a decent word with the occult community and thought an example of your work might do so.”

His expression shifts through an amalgam of emotions before settling on suspicion. “Then why not simply be upfront with me and ask?”

“Because I didn’t want to give you a chance to say no,” she launches back with a haughty pout.

“So you thought you’d bypass me and take it anyway?” he chuckles dryly with a disbelieving shake of his head. “How very Occassi of you.”

“You can think poorly of me if you’d like but in the end, I was trying to do you a favour.”

“Suppose I entrusted you with my intellectual property, what guarantees can I get that it won’t be appropriated?”

“You’re just going to have to trust me.”

He sucks in sharply. “Very low chance of that.”

“Do you want my help or not?” she demands, her jaw stiffening in determination.

He narrows his eyes, luminescent even in the darkness of the room. “Fine.” He picks up the book and works at the symbols with his lean fingers until the vines recoil with a shudder. “This should have enough information on my research, but you ought to know that I expect to have it back.”

He hands her the tome and she clutches it to her chest. 

“Not to worry, Capiton,” she declares in confidence, “your work will be in safe hands.”

He steps aside to let her leave and she brushes past him, still feeling the fevered burn on her cheeks from when she’d been blushing. She stops once inside the sitting room and allows herself a breath of relief, glancing down at the tome in hand with a small smile of victory. 


	4. Cocktail

When he doesn’t hear from her in days he starts to worry that she’d duped him. He curses at the very concept, that he might have already been swindled by her in spite of his careful machinations to maintain control. 

He can still remember the warmth of her body against him when he’d trapped her in his arms. The glide of her hands against his chest. Small, insignificant things that should not remain entangled in his memory the way that they were and yet—

This is troublesome, he decides. It was trial enough in Mortos to keep her at an arm’s distance when she’d been nothing more to him than a brother’s new flame with a smile too bright to be reasonable. But now she is an opponent and this is hostile ground. He cannot allow himself to become… distracted. No matter how pretty a package such a distraction came in.

He helps himself to the assortment of breakfast foods that had been set out before him on the table. At a certain hour, like clockwork, the room would prepare itself for a meal and a set of gleaming silver dishes would appear in the dining quarters for his perusal. This time there is dry-cured salmon marinated in herbs, [ sun-dried tomatoes sprinkled with lavender ](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/82/46/07/8246079436d8b41f8bfddcd0c43e4940.jpg) and scrambled quail eggs with spinach. This is served alongside a warm loaf of [ stinging nettle bread ](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/27/9d/71/279d71789f7fe56a2fc2f717090c0d22.jpg) which he cuts into with a satisfying crackle.

As a full-grown Occassi, he required, at a minimum, six meals per day with carnivorous options — though he’d always been more partial to fowl and fish. He liked the elegance that came of ensnaring them. How the process seemed somehow cleaner, neater, than the foul-smelling, blood-soaked mess that was hunting down a deer. He’d dirty his hands of course, should he need to. But should there be a choice in the matter, he would always prefer to keep his fingers spotless. 

Once he’d devoured the rest of the food he turns his attention towards the ornately patterned box of macarons which contained various pastel shades of the Soleterean sweet. He takes out a blue one and cracks it between his fingers only to find a tiny slip of paper wedged between the layers of meringue. He unfurls the note from the pastry to find a message written in a playful, curlicue script:

_ Cocktails tonight. Wear something pretty. — L _

He traces his finger over the whimsical loops of her initial before scrunching up the note in his hand with a wry chuckle. 

In the end, he settles on a slim-fitted paisley dinner suit in [ midnight blue ](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/9f/f8/cb/9ff8cb9e1cb86c770d030e108d8bd306.jpg) which enhances the hue of his turquoise eyes. He pairs it with a matching tie and purple shirt, stuffing his jacket pocket with a geometrically folded handkerchief. He sprays a few puffs of his cologne, allowing himself to indulge in the subtly spiced aroma, before he moves into the sitting room to await Laila’s arrival.

He finds he is not prepared for her when she does.

She ascends the steps in tiers of translucent black lace with a neckline that droops off the shoulders — providing him with an abundant eyeful of her honey-hued collarbone that glimmers with her star-dusted skin.

He stands to greet her as she enters, one brow quirked towards him in appraisal as her gaze takes a lingering journey down his form.

“Well, don’t you look fetching,” she praises, reaching up with hands garbed in red velvet elbow-length gloves to adjust his tie.

He finds himself looking at the cherry seal of her lacquered mouth as she does so, even more luscious and plump than usual, and imagines what it would be like to put his lips against it.

“I could say the same of you.”

She releases a soft breath of laughter as her hands come to rest briefly on his chest before she removes them. “Lucrèce Mielette has agreed to a meeting in order for you to pitch her your ideas.”

He parts his lips to speak before she halts him with one finger.

“No promises,” she near sing-songs in her birdlike chirrup, “but I happen to have a good feeling about this.” She holds out her arm for him to take. “Come on.”

As she turns he can see that her dress is similarly low cut at the back, displaying the delicate framework of her shoulder blades before it is adorned with a red velvet ribbon. He takes her elbow, slotting his arm through it and they walk down the stairs to the bottom of the tower for what might have been the first time for him since he arrived. 

Laila breezes past the guards with ease and a nod of acknowledgement towards them before steering him through the garden path past the rose bushes where a candlelit setting had been prepared for their arrival. 

“It’s such a lovely night out I thought we’d enjoy our drinks in the gardens,” she explains, approaching the table to pull out their chairs and re-scatter some of the rose petals that had clustered at one corner of the lace tablecloth. 

He doesn’t disagree with her assessment for in contrast to the frigidity of Mortesian climates, Soleterean nights are sultry events that left you gasping if you were not used to the rise in temperature. Even their darkness makes him want to strip himself bare. 

“Why not?” he says, taking a seat by the faint burble of the fountain in the pond where the light breeze can cool the nape of his neck.

It is once they are sitting that Lucrèce arrives and Laila bursts out from her seat to receive her. 

“Ah, Lucrèce, thank you for coming, my love,” she declares bright as a bell as they exchange kisses on both cheeks in Soleterean custom and begin to speak rapidly in the limpid, liquid speech of Soltongue — too fast for his still practising ears. Laila parts first to introduce him. “Capiton Calantis, this is Dr Lucrèce Mielette, Lucrèce, meet Capiton Darius Calantis.”

“A pleasure,” he greets with a courteous bow of his head.

Lucrèce scrunches her lips to one side as she looks at him. “You are right, Laila, he is very pretty.”

Laila whacks her friend playfully on the forearm before escorting her to a chair.

“So let us not mince words,” Lucrèce begins as she unfolds her napkin onto her lap. “Princess Laila has shown me your work and I have to say that I’m impressed. I already know of your existing contributions to the war effort but I would potentially be interested in beginning a working partnership in weapons development if you’d like to tell me a little more of what you had in mind.”

“I’ve spent a number of years travelling and documenting research in the field of monstrology with some funding granted by my father,” Darius explains as a server arrives with their drinks — [ soft pink cocktails that are misting with froth and rimmed in crystal sugar, fitted with cocktail sticks of speared strawberries ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/1f15299247658e061e84fcb937983611/tumblr_p3sbp4r4K11u2s2n4o1_400.gifv). Love potions, he hears they are called. “Mortos has always been home to a variety of dangerous species and I’ve performed many dissections to better understand how it is they work. It is through this that I suppose I branched out into the field of creating organic matter based on existing biological templates. The process still isn’t quite refined but with some backing, I believe I can make fast progress.”

She makes a hum of understanding as she drinks her cocktail. “And how much funding do you would believe this would entail?”

Another platter arrives, this time an appetizer — [ bruschette topped with sheep’s cheese, sliced pears and pansies ](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/aa/72/bb/aa72bbe0f2f1044920c473bca88a062a.jpg). 

“I could not give you a precise number but should we begin a partnership I am happy to negotiate.” 

“Well, first things first we’d need to receive charter permission from the Crown.” Lucrèce swirls her cocktail stick in her glass before giving a sly look towards Laila. “I’ll let you handle that, shall I?”

“You’d certainly have better luck than me,” Laila titters in response, shifting in her seat. 

He feels her knees collide against his as she does so, not for the first time that evening, but he’d tried hard not to notice it until now. He steals a glance at her as she takes a bite out of bruschetta and sees that her cheeks had gone roseate from all the alcohol she’d been drinking, her lip rouge now enticingly smudged, and he wonders again if this is how she might look after being kissed. 

He swallows the thought away with another drink from his cocktail glass and transfers his attention to Lucrèce whom he engages in an intense intellectual back and forth about his research until they come to reach a conclusion.

“Well, now that I’ve met you I feel even more confident in extending you an invitation to my research facility. I can introduce you to my team and we can discuss more about grants, funding, charters… all that other technical jargon, then.” 

Darius raises his glass in salute. “That sounds like a plan.”

They both clink their glasses, minds and bellies now full to satiation before Lucrèce polishes off the last of her drink and rises to depart.

Laila takes Lucrèce’s shoulders in hand and presses another two butterfly kisses to her cheeks. “Thank you again for being so open-minded.”

“You know I’d do anything for you, esteile.”

Laila beams in response and steps aside to give way to Darius.

“I’ll be in touch, Capiton,” Lucrèce tells him.

“Doctor.”

With that, she is on her way, disappearing into the swathes of pastel-coloured rose bushes and leaving the two alone.

“You can thank me any time now,” Laila prompts, her head arched in slight mischievous glee as she grins at him.

He soon finds himself smiling back at her, unable to resist being infected by her insidious jubilation. “Thank you, Your Radiance.”

She scoffs, sidling over to him on her seat. “Oh come now, _Your Radiance.”_ She rolls her eyes. “I think I deserve a warmer thank you than that.”

“Thank you, Laila,” he amends, his tongue tracing carefully over the vowels of her name as though he almost can’t believe he gets to say it. 

He watches her pause, a blush rosing her cheeks as she has the grace to look away and tuck a curl behind her ear. “Hm, that’s better.”

She lets her hand drop to his knee. By accident or design, he could not say. But it is almost instinctive, the way he pulls away from her. 

“Perhaps we… ought not to be getting that warm, Your Radiance.”

There is a flicker of hurt in her eyes before she smiles it away. “Excuse me?”

“I mean it hasn’t escaped my notice that you’ve been flirting with me all evening.”

“Flirting,” she echoes in derision, “I was being friendly, Soleterea has a very touch-positive culture. I recognise it is not quite the same in Mortos…”

“Is that why you’ve been commenting on my looks to other people?” he counters, brow raised in challenge.

She lets out an embroidered laugh. “Alright, perhaps I was flirting a little. But let’s not pretend you’ve been an innocent party the entire evening…”

“And what makes you think I’d have any interest in taking up with my brother’s old flame?”

Her features sharpen into something sly and vixen. “Because I saw the way you’ve been looking at me when you thought I wasn’t noticing.”

He pauses, swallowing, realising that he can’t deny it and yet is determined to do so anyway. “You think a lot of yourself, don’t you?”

“Oh, so you’re saying if I suggested I’d be open to the idea that you wouldn’t take me up on it?”

He feels heat encroaching upon the nape of his neck, creeping its way up from his jawline to his cheeks. He dispels it with a cough and a laugh. “Perhaps it’s about time you retire, I fear there’s not enough space on this table to sustain both our egos.”

She joins him in his laughter, her features settling into something hazily soft after the fact. “You know you can be nice when you let your guard down. Quite charming, in fact.” She traces the rim of her cocktail glass and polishes off the final dregs of contents. “But I think I will retire and escort you back to your room.”

He nearly forgets his freedom is but a temporary arrangement and it is with growing disappointment that he eventually is led back towards the door of the Moon Tower where the Lightshield guards await to welcome him inside. 

Before he enters, he turns back to get a final glance at Laila and finds that she has already paused on her own journey to look back at him. Beneath the moonlight, her skin is pearlescent and she looks even more befitting of her supernal origins. 

“Good night, Darius,” she says, her final vowels floating in the breeze before she turns away. It is perhaps the first time they had exchanged names on so intimate a basis and it feels just as carnal a sensation as if she had kissed him goodnight.


	5. Cherry Pie

After having a small taste of freedom from the tower, Darius spends the rest of his time once inside plotting how he might best be able to escape from it again. He peers out of the window to survey the tower’s structuring and notices the skirts of ornate corbels that jutted ever so slightly out from the main marble bricks. 

Should he be able to utilise his mathematical aptitude to his advantage then it is very possible that he could calculate a method in which he can jump from corbel to corbel in such a way to avoid certain (temporary) death. However, even with the numerical machinery of his mind on the task, he sees that he cannot avoid one last perilous drop from the last corbel skirt to the ground below.

In simpler terms: he is going to have to break his legs.

Already he winces in psychic anguish from the predetermined injury for even though broken legs were far easier to mend than a broken neck, the concept of purposeful harm did not quite appeal to him. He’d had enough of that growing up in the Citadel. 

Even more bothersome still is the idea that he should accomplish this whilst avoiding being spotted by the patrolling Lightshields. He’d already taken note of their shifts and the changes within them. He knows what the best times of day and night were to strike. All that is left to him is pure dumb luck.

With a heaving sigh, he props his elbows against the window ledge and allows his gaze to travel across the paradisal scene of the palace grounds. He sees the fair-haired heads of the Solarites in opulent hues of gold, platinum and pearl traversing about their day. He tries to locate hers among them. Perhaps a difficult task due to the relative uniformity in their appearance from afar, but he’d already memorised enough of her to recognise her catlike gait when he sees it — the lively bounce in her step and the fluid movement of her hips paired with the particular uptilted way she held her head. 

He locates her eventually in a daisy meadow drenched in sunlight wherein her carefree walk is more frenetic than usual as she prepares for an event to take place on the grounds. If he focuses his hearing enough he can just about decipher her high, clipped tone as she dictates orders to her subordinates:

> _ “...Could you straighten out that blanket over there? It’s looking a little crooked...” _
> 
> _ “...I want to make sure all the food in the baskets are properly arranged and labelled as according to type. Do not put anything cold next to anything freshly baked, etc...” _
> 
> _ “...No, no, no, not like that. You’ve put too many cherry pies in this basket. I want there to be an equal distribution of every filling...” _

He chuckles to himself, not envying those on the receiving end of her perfectionism — a trait he does not doubt was inherited. Still, he could admire her artistry and fastidious attention to detail for the event — a picnic, by the looks of it — is certain to be nothing short of picturesque.

He decides to watch it in progress as Laila eventually departs from the meadow, satisfied with her outcome, only to return later with an orderly queue of raven-haired, pale-skinned children. Odakans, he quickly realises. These are likely war orphans, displaced from their families by the ensuing chaos of the invasion. Likely, she has put together this event for the sake of pampering them, to distract them from their hardships.

That is one way in which they differ: they care about the mortals, these Solarites. All the power in the world at their fingertips and they’d only ever used it to extend their hand. 

He couldn’t quite understand it himself, why anyone would feel the need to waste their time with such transient life-forms. Though he feels something rise in his chest when he watches Laila braid their hair with wildflowers among her fellow Solarites — drinking rose lemonade and eating cherry pies on their gingham blankets. 

Eventually, when the sun has sunk low enough, Laila commandeers a number of pillows and blankets to be distributed to the children and walks among them, singing to them a Soleterean lullaby to send them off to slumber. Her voice is limpid starlight, tranquilising, he feels something in him become pliant to its sound. 

It isn’t until later that he realises he too had been falling asleep and rouses suddenly from the makeshift pillow he’d made of his arms with a disgruntled noise. What he sees when he opens his eyes is the flaxen head of Laila bent over a lone child, her shoulders low, stroking their hair rhythmically as they sleep. 

What he notices most, however, is that positioned away from the eyes of those surrounding her she had let drop that perfectly constructed facade she’d been emitting for the past several hours and allowed her face to look sombre, conflicted. He wonders about the person lurking behind the rosy veneer who could emit such a dour look and decides he would stuff it away for later study as a secret all to himself.


	6. Nectar

“You wanted to see me, maman?”

Laila steps beneath the pavilion to find her mother awaiting her on one of its alabaster benches. The pavilion is probably one of her mother’s favourite places in the palace. Hers too, in fact. For she had read many books here on the very bench her mother now occupies. It is an ornate structure of delicate iron scrollwork and a frosted glass roof painted with rose motifs to match the bushes that hemmed around it. 

Her mother had severed one of the gold roses from its bush and is now lifting it to her nose. “Yes, Lucrèce Mielette recently came to me and mentioned she’d had a discussion with Darius Calantis regarding weapons development.”

“Yes.” 

She had been anticipating this eventually and finds no use in denying it.

“She said this meeting was set up by you.”

Laila watches her mother’s fingers and how they make quick work of depriving the rose stem of its thorns.

“Yes.”

“Well explain, esteile,” her mother’s voice is soft but her smile is sharp as the thorns she had plucked, “what on earth made you think  _ that  _ was a good idea?”

Laila swallows, feeling a tight constriction in her chest as though she is being wound tight in a vice. “Our alliance with Seraj is still uncertain, I thought we might use the extra help.”

“From an Occassi?”

“I believe that his intentions are genuine, maman. You did ask for me to watch him.”

“Yes, watch, not insert yourself into matters that are none of your concern.” Her jaw tightens as she snaps off a petal of the rose, finding it imperfect, and lets it flutter to the floor in disdain. “Either way, you have already begun to set this thing in motion so I am going to speak with Capiton Calantis regarding these… mutants and see where we shall go from there.”

She nods in acquiescence. “Of course, maman. I know you will make the right choice for our country.”

She begins to turn to make her escape and her mother allows her just enough time to reach outside the pavilion before reeling her back.

“And Laila?”

Her shoulders solidify as she makes a slow turn. “Yes?”

“If you ever go behind my back again I will make sure you never get to be in charge of so much as a brunch. Do you understand me? No more parties. No more events. No social calendar. Am I clear?”

“Yes, maman.” 

She staggers away on unsteady fawn legs, making it halfway through the wisteria-covered pergola before she has to stop. She collapses rather pathetically against the frail shrubbery to drag air into her wanting lungs, her body trembling like a leaf in autumn wind. 

She isn’t sure when she finds it safe to move again but soon her body begins to right itself — the blur in her vision clearing and the nausea burning away from her stomach — and she recovers the strength in her legs to continue on her way through the grounds.

She spends the rest of the morning in the palace vineyards among the nectar grapes, watching as the field workers rummage vines for the translucent pink berries to fill their baskets with them. It is too early for the grape season, but nectar berries are an unusual strain that remain fruitful year-round. Fortunate for the number of parties that the Solarites throw, for no bash would be complete in Soleterea without its famed sparkling nectar wine. 

Laila plucks a berry from a vine and puts it in her mouth, the skin bursting the moment her teeth touch it. She closes her eyes and hums in pleasure as she becomes soaked in that dreamy languor a nectar grape always provides its consumer. It is part of what made their nectar wine so sought-after. She tugs one of the branches to take a grape-cluster into her mouth and devours more of them, allowing the neurotic chemical composition of her body to become transplanted with the serene fluid of nectar juice.

She swipes the corner of her mouth daintily and heaves a satisfied sigh, then she walks through the fields of gold-coloured vines resplendent with their aureate glow until she notices the fragments of a prowling figure between the gaps of the gilt leaves. She moves closer to investigate, parting her way through two vines to notice that it is Darius being escorted by two Lightshields — likely having been requested by her mother for a meeting.

She feels a burning urge to talk to him and decides she cannot wait until he is safely restored within the tower. So she creates a diversion, sparking an orb of pure electrical power within her fingertips that she allows to grow in force and intensity until she tosses it and it ignites with a crackle of writhing, spidery legs in the near distance. 

“What was that?” calls out one of the guards as the other pivots to look in the same direction as prompted by her partner.

Laila parts her way through the vines and seizes Darius by the wrist, hauling him suddenly through the opening and resealing the plants. She places a hand over his mouth as the Lightshields turn and, in seeing their charge escaped, sound an alert. 

“Come on,” she says, taking his hand and transporting them to the other end of the vineyard with quicksilver speed. “It should take a while for them to find us here.”

“Not that I don’t appreciate it but—” Darius straightens out the sleeves and front of his jacket as he plucks a stray vine leaf and flicks it off the edge of his fingers. “—is there a reason for this abduction?”

“My mother told me she wished to speak with you this morning,” Laila explains, hands clasped behind her back. “I was hoping you might tell me how it went?”

He narrows his eyes in disbelief. “That’s it?”

“I’ve received a lot of trouble, helping you, with Lucrèce and all.” She taps her foot rather impatiently with a sigh. “I would just like some reassurance that I didn’t risk it all for nothing.”

“Well you needn’t worry your pretty little head about it, princess,” Darius quips, “your mother has agreed to allow me to begin my research into mutant development as soon as possible.”

She suppresses a squeal, bouncing energetically on her feet as she clasps his shoulders in delight. “Oh, that’s excellent.”

“I’d say so,” he replies, the slight crook of a smile appearing in the corner of his lips. “Shame we don’t have any wine to celebrate.”

She holds up one finger and reaches into one of the vines, producing for him a small pile of nectar grapes. “It’s not quite the same as when it’s vinted but it’s the best I can offer right now.”

She picks up one grape, putting it to his lips, and she watches his brief pause in bewilderment at so intimate a gesture before he opens his mouth and accepts the offering of fruit. 

She eats one herself, indulging in its sweetness, before slinging her arm through his to link their elbows as they walk.

“I suppose you must regret hating me now, for all that time when I was with Dominus.” She glances over at him rather triumphantly as she nudges him with her shoulder.

“I never hated you,” he reveals, taking another grape from her palm. “I suppose I was… wary of you.”

Her brow furrows in questioning, wondering what it is that he could find to be so worrisome about her. 

“You know, I remember the first time that I saw you. You had just come out of your carriage in the courtyard to the Citadel. You were wearing your pink lace dress with ribbons in your hair and I happened to catch a glimpse of you from the window. I remember thinking… you must’ve been a mirage of some sort. Some vision I had plucked from deep within my mind. But by the time I had thought to approach you, you had walked straight into my brother’s arms and that was that.”

“And you’ve avoided me ever since?”

He chuckles dryly and eats a grape before he continues. “Dominus and I have a very complicated history when it comes to romantic entanglements. By the time you arrived on the scene, my father had warned me off from approaching any of his other lovers. I suppose I knew if I allowed myself to get close to you I might not have been able to resist the urge to steal you away. So I kept my distance.”

She feels a blush rose her cheeks at this revelation but still she levels him with a stare that is quite dauntless. “And what makes you think that I would’ve been so easily stolen?”

He halts their walk to face her and traces his fingers down the incline of her high-boned cheek as though he is mapping a constellation for the very first time. 

“The fact that you’re letting me touch you like this now.”

Her breath suspends as he takes a loose curl and glides it through his fingers, all the while looking at her with that glacial blue stare that freezes her ligaments right to the spot. 

“Would you like to know how I would’ve done it?”

She shouldn’t. She shouldn’t be letting him do this. He is still of enemy rank and he is  _ Dominus’ _ brother and though her heart still bruises from his final betrayal could she really be that… cruel?

She swallows thickly as she looks at him, still remembering the phantom of her parting confrontation with Dominus and all the ways he had hurt her in it. And she knows that this would hurt him. More than any physical injury she could inflict. And perhaps… perhaps she just wants to lose herself in someone else’s arms for a moment. Even if they happen to belong to him. 

“Show me,” she says, her eyes clouded with daring.

“I would’ve started by touching your hair, maybe tucking a curl behind your ear. Then I would’ve tilted your chin up to face me.” He mimes his way through all the gestures as he takes the point of her chin in his hand.

“Then what?”

“I would’ve stroked your cheek, like this.” He traces his thumb over her skin. “And then I would’ve kissed you senseless.”

His breath is tantalisingly warm against her lips as he exhales and she can still smell the mint tea he had consumed for breakfast. 

She allows her eyes to flutter to a close as she leans in with a feather-soft sigh and pushes herself up onto her toes.

The moment is shredded by a sudden call in the distance— “Cressida! I believe I see him! Halt, Occassi!”

He smirks in rueful amusement. “I believe that’s my cue to leave.”

She snatches his arm before he can depart from her. “Come to my boudoir tonight, we can continue this demonstration then.”

He glances at her with enigmatic intent. “And how do you suggest I get out of the tower?”

“I’m sure you’ll figure that out,” she says, and with a coquettish smile launched in his direction, she walks away, leaving him to the mercy of the Lightshields.


	7. Satin

She hears home in her ears as she brushes her hair in the mirror. Each stroke of unicorn-hair bristles is the shivering of wind through the palm trees. Her willow limbs are bent in repose before the vanity as she detangles her golden tresses with an ornate silver brush.

Eventually, she sets it down and reaches for her gardenia-infused coconut oil to massage into her scalp for moisture and begins to plait her hair into Soleterean braids. She barely makes it through one when she sees a figure invade her mirror in the distance and turns with a start—finding the tenebrous silhouette of Darius behind the billowing drapes that veiled her balcony. 

For a moment she just stares at him, waiting for her pulse to settle. He looks dishevelled, in a very uncharacteristic state of undress that consists of a [ shirt loosely buttoned and buckskin breeches ](https://www.thefashionisto.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/11/roberto-bolle-06.jpg) that tauntingly embraced the muscular shape of his thighs.

She bites her lip as she unravels the braid and rises up from her vanity to approach him through the parting in the drapes, almost uncertain he is real. 

“How did you get out of the tower?” she asks, head tilting in curiosity. 

He steps closer to her, solidifying himself into existence with an unflappable air. “I had to break my legs.”

To that, she can do nothing but secretly admire his dedication to keeping this appointment. She feels a smile flickering on her lips in amusement which she suppresses away.

“Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

He has a way of looking at her that makes her feel as though she is see-through. She becomes aware of the flimsy garment of satin and lace that is her [ nightgown ](https://romyschneiderism.tumblr.com/post/165158435986/ornella-muti-in-the-taming-of-the-scoundrel) and folds her arms around her waist. 

“Come in.”

He steps past her and she closes the glass doors behind him. She watches him survey his surroundings with the twitching instincts of a predator and thinks how out of place he seems; this half-wild creature among her hand-painted murals and gilt fixtures. 

After having his fill of the room, he turns towards her and closes the space between them in two small strides.

“So,” he says, reaching to pick up one of her spiral coils between his fingers. “Shall we pick up where we left off?”

She looks up at him through a gold canopy of lashes. “And where was that, exactly?”

He tucks the curl behind her ear and traces his thumb against her cheek, sliding it beneath her chin to tilt it upwards. “I believe it was… around about the part where I do this.”

He leans in to seal his lips over hers and she savours the feel of it as his mouth begins to glide at a languid pace. He takes his time, his kisses deep and lingering—almost as though he can’t bear to pull away when he eventually parts for breath. 

She hooks her fingers into his shirt to pull him back to her, mouth greedy as she raises herself up onto her toes to bridge the space between their heights. She releases a sigh of yearning into the kiss before drawing back. “So what’s next?”

“That’s up to you.”

She takes her bottom lip between her teeth in consideration and then reaches for the buttons of his shirt, freeing them one by one, removing the diaphanous fabric to reveal the chiselled plane of his chest. She unbuttons his breeches next, sliding them down his thickly muscled thighs and lets him step out of the rest as he removes his boots and stockings. 

She can see how hard he is through the silhouette of his silk drawers and that causes her to catch her breath a bit as she unburdens him of the final layer, her pulse quickening at the sight beneath. She lifts her eyes back to his face as she presses her hands against his chest, leading him back to her bed where she sits him on top of it. 

“Take off your dress,” he commands, his voice a low rasp.

She does as he asks, rolling down the straps of her nightgown with theatrical flair as she allows the fabric to ripple down her form—leaving her bare but for her frilly knickers which she removes next. 

She can’t help but disguise a smile as she does this, watching the simmering intensity of his gaze upon her as his sclera becomes inked black with lust which spills into his veins in writhing calligraphy patterns. 

His throat oscillates with a swallow. “Come here.”

She goes to him and rests her hand upon his shoulders as he lifts her into his lap. She feels a shudder go through her as he slides his hands down her back, so delicately it is almost hallucinatory. She didn’t think it possible for hands like his, tools built for battles and bruising, to have such unbridled tenderness within them.

“Tell me what you like,” he says in that same blended timbre of gravel and silk. “I want to know how to touch you.”

She moistens her lips as she meets his eyes, the penetrating blue of them, and says, “Kiss me.”

He begins to near her mouth before she stops him.

“Not there.”

His eyes flicker with understanding as he lowers his lips to the corner beneath her jaw. “Like that?” 

He places his lips against her neck. 

“Yes.”

Her neck reclines as he kisses a trail down her throat and past the slope of her shoulder, his hands coming up to cup her breasts and massage her nipples to stiffness. 

She emits a low, soft sound as his mouth continues its leisurely journey down her breast—his tongue lightly teasing over her nipple as his thumb strokes the other—before his hand traces down her stomach to slide between her thighs.

“Look at you,” he says, and she suppresses a whimper as he glides a finger over her clit, _ so _slowly that it sends a prickle through her abdomen like static. “Already soaking wet and I’ve barely even touched you.”

Her lips part to release a cry as her hand wraps around his, guiding his fingers to move exactly how she wanted them. “Yes, yes, like that—just like that.”

He crooks his finger inside her to stroke it against the just right spot, adding another finger to tease around her entrance in leisurely circles. Her muscles clench around his fingers, a tension coiling in her abdomen as her hips buck against his hand which he steadies with his other. 

She comes hard, her legs shaking as her nails dig harshly into his wrist—but she is too enveloped within the throes of it to care.

It is at this point that she thinks to even the scales but realises she is still unfamiliar with this sort of equipment. Before Dominus, her lovers were prominently of a more feminine shape and thus she only needed to mirror what she knew of her own body. Dominus himself had always been more averse to touch and preferred her hands pinned back by either his own or shadow-tendrils while he pleasured her in whatever form he wished.

Darius did not seem similarly inclined and so she allows her hand to travel with uncertainty over his groin as she caresses him, her other hand grabbing his shaft. She hears him sigh out in pleasure as she strokes around the unusual curvature to the bulbous head ringed with raised ridges and feels a throb of anticipation for how he might feel against her if she rubbed herself on him.

“Harder,” he grunts out as she continues her sensual massage, gradually increasing in confidence as his moans grow more laboured in intensity. “Grab harder.”

She does as he asks, handling his sack more roughly as she slides a hand away to dip between her thighs and coat his shaft with slick. 

He jerks erratically against her fist as she pumps him, her thumb tracing over his tip. She can feel how wet and sticky he is against her hand and can’t resist the urge to pull him towards her, stroking his head against her clit.

Laila inhales sharply as she guides his tip along her clit, using her hand to circle him around her entrance until her orgasm comes in rapid succession of the last one. 

She wraps her legs around him, compressing their chests together so that they are skin to skin when she takes him partially inside her. She keeps the thrusts short and shallow, sighing out in satiation as her hips roll methodically against him until she is pushed over the edge again—

She hears Darius exhale in an amused and slightly exasperated fashion. “Are you going to tease me all evening?”

She smirks in response, feeling slightly rueful in her neglect as she resumes stroking him to the point of release. He climaxes with a shudder and feeling the hot spurt of it only sets her off again as she digs her nails into his back.

They remain clasped like that for a while before they untangle and Darius brushes a few damp strands of hair from her face. He flattens his palm against the small of her back, coaxing her gently towards him to kiss her—his tongue caressing over hers with ease. 

Laila breaks away slowly, her breaths heavy and panting as she smirks at him. “I hope that was worth breaking your legs for.”

He matches her mirth with something even more bestial. 

“Not finished with you yet,” he says, then he shoves her down onto the mattress.

She loses track of the hours they spend exploring each other’s bodies. They keep waking each other up at intermittent moments, indulging themselves in their strive to bring the other to satiation every time. 

As with most things, Darius is meticulous as a lover and he traces every part of her with the same deep-abiding fascination as a cartographer with a map.

They lie spooned together in the aftermath, their legs entangled from when she’d taken him between her legs to grind on him and he had rubbed himself off between her thighs—their moans muffled between kisses shared over her shoulder.

She hugs his arms closer as he holds her and trails her fingers up his forearm, thinking it was exactly this that had been missing from her bed during all those sleepless nights.

“You should probably return to the tower, it’ll be almost dawn soon,” she expresses sleepily, humming with pleasure when he buries his face into the crook of her neck and kisses her shoulder.

“Suppose I don’t wish to leave?” 

It is said playfully but there’s an edge to it that makes her shiver for how serious he sounds. 

“You can wish what you want, it won’t matter when a group of Lightshields arrive to drag you off by your ear.”

“Let them,” he says, turning her onto the back so that she can face him. He strokes her face with his thumb so reverently, as if she had become something precious to him. “I’d sooner fight them all off bare-handed than be persuaded to leave your side.”

“Darius—” she says, infusing her tone with much-needed disbelief to dispel the swell in her chest. Because it is ridiculous, the things he is saying, he cannot possibly think or feel that way about her. 

“Do you want me to go?”

“I—” She swallows, compressing the sob that she knows is threatening to work its way up her throat. “It doesn’t _ matter _what I want.”

“It does to me,” he says, and he just sounds so _ earnest _ and he looks at her with such unadulterated care that she can no longer stop the tears from falling. 

She leaps up from the bed as soon as she feels the first two on her cheeks. “Please go.”

She searches frantically for her nightgown, pulling it up by the straps onto her shoulders as she tries to constrict the hiccup in her throat. 

“Laila—”

“_ Go _,” she shrieks back and she is certain that is going to alarm at least one person but she is too overwhelmed to care. She blurs swiftly into the ensuite with her light-quick speed and locks the door behind her, pressing her back against it as the first real sob ripples its tempestuous wave through her body and all she can do is ride it out.


	8. Mask

Carnival is cataclysmic.

Parties detonate in the streets in a raucous foam of laughter and drinking. The nectar is free-flowing, sparkling in the streets like spilt diamonds. Decanters fountain with it as the ringing chime of clinked glasses echo from rooftop to rooftop. The streets are littered with blood-red droplets of rose petals. There are many fireworks and many ribbons and macarons stuffed with ripe cherries. Stores embellish their doorways with sweet musk roses and brugmansia. 

Laila sits beside her mother on their parade float which she has fashioned into the style of a music box. The box, when wound, springs open its gilt-edged, pink-coloured lid to reveal a composition of sprite ballerinas all dancing the esteemed  _ Rose Adagio _ while fragrant jets of rosewater surge from ornate spouts. 

Every year on Carnival the ten royal houses of the Solarites are to put together a float to represent their namesake. Though it became somewhat difficult to maintain originality during the centuries of the practice, many tried all the same and it isn’t until Laila had been seated before one of her favourite ballets in the Aureate Theatre that the idea had sprouted in her mind to be nurtured into full bloom. 

She herself is crowned in roses — pastel pink blossoms with tinges of yellow at the centre. Her  [ dress ](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/e0/03/6e/e0036e02f264d1fc1821b4631833fe92.jpg) is of a similar hue with bouquets of her nominal flower sewn into the skirt. She keeps waving beside her mother on their twin thrones carved from rosewood which is painted over with a lacquer of gilt to match the edging of the music box. 

Eventually, the parade draws to a close and she is mercifully let down from the float to join in the rhapsodic frenzy of the ensuing festivities. Carnival isn’t her favourite holiday, that honour will always go to Lovers’ Day, but it is among them and it is always this part that she likes best. When she can walk among the streets of her people under masked anonymity to indulge in the fruits of their artistic labour. 

As a celebration of the coming Springtime, Carnival is an event where most let flow their creative juices. Citizens set up stalls of finished and baked goods which enticingly coax in a melange of flavour and colour to all who pass them. Laila purchases a mirror shaped in the form of a pearl shell at one stall and then skips over to another to help herself to some candied violets — all the while watching briefly the pastry contests and fashion shows proceeding in an elaborate spectacle around her. 

Her attention is as fleeting and swift as the beat of a hummingbird’s wings and so she does not linger long upon either competition before her mind begins to dull and she searches for something sharper to renew it. 

She soon finds it when she manages to locate the more ‘underground’ festivities. Crowded, lambent rooms fogged with body heat and desire where the gradual theft of one’s sight led you to rely on more primal senses — the throbbing bassline of the music’s rhythm, the aftertaste of sweat or perfume on your tongue or the wandering hands of one’s dance partner. 

She slips into the den of writhing bodies with ease, allowing her hips to sway languidly to the strum of guitar and bass. The music stirs within her something carnal and febrile which seeps deep into the pit of her core and begins to spread as she moves — a small, self-satisfied smile curving on her lips as she does so.

She exchanges several partners throughout the night as they trade tiny shots of crème liqueur, drizzling it sparingly on her throat before cleaning it with a light suck. She giggles in delight as the sprite she finds herself with traces her tongue over her neck but finds her mirth cut short when the vestige of fangs biting into her shoulder worms its way into her sensual memory. 

She pulls back suddenly and excuses herself with a smile to drown out the feel of his lips against her throat with something stronger. She knocks back the shot of brandy someone offers her and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. It is when she places the glass down that she feels a new pair of hands grip her waist and she begins to prepare herself with a simper and an offer of refusal when the person speaks in her ear:

“You look like you’re having a good time.”

The voice is like a dousing of ice water down her back before an unbearable heat encroaches to take its place. She pivots round to face him and finds that he is masked just like any other but she knows the shape of him when she sees it. Even disguised, his height and build displaced him as an elephant among ants. 

“How did you get out of the tower?” she asks, irritated in spite of herself and fully aware that he has not let go of her waist.

Darius’ lips pull back infuriatingly slow into a smirk. “You have to ask?” 

“Breaking your legs twice in a row is quite concerning, Capiton. I’m beginning to worry about you.”

“Back to that again, are we?”

“I—” she stammers, realising that she had slipped back into the rules of propriety when using his name. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He begins to pull her closer so that when he next speaks she can feel the hot exhale of his breath on her skin. “Yes, you do.”

She puts her hands on his chest to put distance between them, not wanting him to sense just how hard her heart is hammering against her chest. “How did you even find me here?”

“You’re quite easy to spot even when you mask yourself,” he tells her, and she remembers that he is a hunter, a predator even. She is likely not to have been the first he has tracked. “I was hoping that we could talk. In private.”

She presses her gloss-slicked lips together before answering. “About what?”

“You  _ know _ what.”

She does but she refuses to indulge him in this. She removes his hands from her waist and begins to slip past him to allow the crowd to swallow her. 

“What are you so afraid of, Laila?”

She shouldn’t have let that stop her but there is something about the low, taunting quality of his voice that digs its way inside her nerves. She pivots back on her heel. 

“You want to talk,” she says, taking a few small steps towards him to bridge the space between them again. “Fine. Let’s talk.”

She grabs him by the arm and leads him upstairs to the corridor of rooms that had been set up for more private conclaves. She picks the first vacant one she finds and walks inside, not even waiting to see if he is following her until she hears the door shut and lock behind her.

“ _ What _ do you want?” she snaps at him, tearing off her mask and dashing it to the floor.

“I wanted to see how you were,” he says, slipping off his own mask as he steps closer to frame the side of her face. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since that night.”

She breaks away from his touch with a sneer. “You’re only saying that because you’re hoping I’ll go to bed with you again.”

“Why did you cry? That night?” he says, skillfully skirting past her accusation. “Was it something I said?”

She closes her eyes and exhales, sliding her hands into her abundant curls and for a moment she thinks about shredding them, clump by clump, until they lie in bloodied tatters at her ankles. “We had a wonderful night together, Darius, but this is far too complicated for either of us to continue. I know that you’re alone here and you’re lonely and sometimes I’m lonely too. It makes sense that you’d want to cling to someone for company but—”

His expression shifts into one of anger. “That’s not what this is.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean your little condescending speech about my loneliness. That’s not what this is to me. I don’t just want someone, I want  _ you _ . And I know that I shouldn’t. And I know that it comes with a lot of risks for us both but still, I want you… and I think you want me too.” 

She swallows, her throat thickening. “We-we can’t  _ do _ this—”

“Look at me,” he says, shushing her as for the second time in a row she is driven to tears before him. Only this time she lets him comfort her the way she refused to the first. He places his thumbs against her cheeks to smudge the tears as they fall and wipe them away from her face. “It’s okay.”

But somehow that only makes her cry harder, the attempt in itself. That of all the people in the world she could turn to she had found herself within the arms of a monster and never felt more cherished. 

“Laila, look at me,” Darius says again and he takes her hand to rest it against his face. “Illumination doesn’t lie, remember? If you earnestly believe I don’t mean my words or if you think I’m just trying to captivate you into bed again. At least this way, you’ll know the truth.”

She traces her thumb over the faint bristles on his cheek as she meets his gaze and finds it calm, direct. She knows that he’ll let her do it to him again even though it hurts him and there’s something that sparks with curiosity in her to snuff away that last lingering doubt that this is just another machination from him.

She takes his other cheek in her hand and brings his face down to kiss him. He releases a sharp breath into her mouth before he returns the kiss, shoving her against the wall as their embrace intensifies from all the longing they’ve had through being apart. 

Laila whimpers softly beneath him as he clasps his body to her, closing any fraction of a gap that might still be between them. 

He slides his hand down her spine to curve beneath her thigh, hooking her leg around his waist as his lips part reluctantly from her to kiss her cheek, her jaw, working his way down the slope of her throat before he continues downwards. 

“Darius—” she sighs out as he lowers to his knees before her. And how did he know that this is exactly where she wants him. 

He shushes her as he begins to lift the many skirts of her dress. “Just relax.”

She watches his head disappear beneath her skirts as he slides her bloomers down and hooks her legs around his shoulders, elevating her up against the wall. She tries clasping at the window ledge for purchase when she feels the exhale of his breath against her inner thigh as he kisses a trail up the delicate skin to slide his tongue inside her. 

She cries out with a frail, shaky moan as he glides his tongue against her with skill, massaging the warm bed of it along her clit before kissing her softly with his lips. She squeezes her thighs around him, pulling him closer as he continues to spell words inside her with his tongue until her legs are trembling around his shoulders.

She arches her neck back, feeling the build of her orgasm coiling tight in her core and she just lets herself go — all the doubts, all the fears, all the insecurities. She just lets herself go with him.


	9. Lobster

“I thought we’d agreed after Dominus: no more Occassi,” Lyra says. Currently, her friend reclines languidly on her cream tufted leather chaise lounge with one foot atop the knee of her other leg, bouncing her ankle rambunctiously.

Laila picks up the plump reeded glass bottle of her perfume and sprays a few puffs to her throat and wrists. Then she stains her lips with  [ rouge lacquer made from crushed rose petals, adding a touch of gold to the bow of her upper lip and canthi ](https://66.media.tumblr.com/69c537873c48ffbf36e98d2343d251c2/tumblr_ndztyuA7Ia1s7mntao1_1280.jpg) . 

“It’s not that I meant for it to happen again, Lyra,” Laila huffs as she sprays her face with grape water for a dewy finish to her skin’s natural glimmer. “It was just… he was there and he was saying all the right things and… I’ve been having a really difficult time recently what with my mother stressing about this war so I could really do without your judgement.” 

She turns to her and juts out her bottom lip in a petulant pout, hoping she looks pathetic enough to take pity upon.

Lyra sighs. “I’m not judging. Much. I’m just concerned about you.”

“Well, you needn’t be,” Laila replies flippantly, sliding white daisies into the  [ coiffure ](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/ee/d7/76/eed7766970bbfbcf3b7b5852c731e80c.jpg) of her golden curls. “I won’t deny that Darius can be a lot of unfavourable things but him and Dominus, they’re not the same. He seems less…” she samples the air as though it might have the word that eludes her, “feral.”

“If anything I’d say that makes him more dangerous,” Lyra counters, “at the very least Dominus had the courtesy to be upfront with his coarseness. Eventually.”

Laila heaves a sigh into the mirror as she remembers the awkward, bumbling way that Dominus had always approached her at the beginning. As though she was a glass figurine that would fracture under anything more forceful than a feather-light touch. She’d soon proven herself hardier than that but part of her wonders if that should’ve been a warning in itself.

“Well, I’m ready,” she declares and rises up from the vanity to smooth the skirt of her  [ ivory floral-patterned dress ](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/2b/7e/09/2b7e0993a9604b61908439c1bc7b4c8f.jpg) .

Lyra lets out a low whistle in approval. “And where are you off to dressed like that?”

“Dinner,” she replies enigmatically before adding, “I’ve decided I am going to keep Capiton Calantis company tonight, seeing as he’s stuck in a tower all day with no social interaction.”

“Dressed like that?” Lyra emphasises, with a quick glance over her lissom form.

Laila flushes in defence. “Well, it’s hardly any more ostentatious than anything I usually wear, Lyra.”

“Right and the come-hither lips and the bedroom eyes?”

She narrows her eyes, her lips fixing in displeasure. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“No, I’m coming with you,” Lyra corrects, righting herself from her reclining position.

“What? Come now, that’s hardly necessary,” she scoffs, fixing a daisy that had tilted slightly out of place. “I am perfectly capable of containing myself around Darius Calantis.”

“Oh, of course, Laila. That it is until he starts giving you those eyes and saying the right things and then oh! Suddenly you’ve just lost track of your underwear…”

“Lyra!”

Her friend merely intensifies her knowing stare.

“Fine,” she relents, “you may come if you believe I need supervision so badly. Though I will remind you that I already have a Lightshield and it’s not you.”

“My father is out on the frontlines. That makes you my responsibility.”

In Lightshield culture, once a knight pledged their service to a family they were also pledging the services of their future children to the children of their liege and so on. It is Leander’s mother and Lyra’s grandmother who had been in service to her mother as a Lightshield since before Laila was born. Leander had been assigned to her after he took up knighthood and Lyra had been training for years to do the same.

Laila slips her hand through the arm of her friend and finds herself marvelling briefly at the firmness of wiry muscle. As fighters, Lightshields favoured dexterity and swiftness and thus leaned more towards lithesome figures but there is power in it all the same and Laila knows she will be more than safe under the thrall of Lyra’s protection.

When they reach the Moon Tower she finds that it is posted with several other Lightshields all under Lyra’s acquaintance. They make brief small talk before Laila enquires entrance into the tower and they scale the spiral steps to the sitting room where Darius is already awaiting her.

He looks particularly delectable this evening in a  [ plum purple suit ](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/32/a5/99/32a5991db02dfa7faaa21c33314707a1.jpg) which fits him snugly in all the most complimentary areas. She finds herself rubbing her lips together in anticipation when he finally turns to look at her.

She is never quite prepared for the effect she has on him. That little spark of recognition in his eyes as his chest hitches, throat bobbling, almost as though he has to brace himself to fully take her in. He’d probably seen centuries of pretty faces before hers and yet he looks at her as though in a sea of smeared greys she is the one thing still glossy with newness. 

He steps towards her, parting his lips to speak when he suddenly notices Lyra beside her and immediately his expression changes — as though he’d politely folded some part of himself away he hadn’t meant to leave uncovered. 

“Your Radiance,” he greets with a courteous nod in her direction, “I see you’ve brought company.”

“I do apologise for the short notice, Capiton,” she says, taking Lyra’s arm in hand, “this is a good friend of mine, Lyra de Lis, I’m afraid she simply  _ insisted _ on joining us tonight. I do hope you have enough food for three.”

“But of course,” he replies amiably, “it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Lyra.” 

“I’m afraid it’s  _ Ser  _ Lyra, Capiton,” Lyra is quick to correct and notably does not return the courtesy extended. 

Darius smiles, sliding his hands into his pockets. “My apologies, if you’d please step through here.”

He had set himself up a table of various deep-sea delights: butter-poached lobster with sparkling nectar wine sauce, crème fraîche and golden roe wrapped in a blanket of smoked salmon topped with dill, raw oysters in a strawberry mignonette sauce and steaming mussels in white wine and garlic. To start, he serves them a shrimp cocktail spiced with ginger and a sweet and sour sauce for dip.

“I do hope neither of you mind seafood,” he mentions while pouring them both glasses of sparkling nectar wine. “It happens to be one of my favourites.”

“Any particular reason for that?” Lyra asks, swirling her half-full glass of nectar, “I would’ve thought an Occassi would prefer something bloodier.”

“Lyra,” Laila admonishes. 

Darius’ smile does not falter. “I suppose it goes back to my time doing mandatory military service back in Mortos. It is required of every male who comes of age in my country to select a particular branch and do a full seventy-five years before we are able to discharge. I managed to put mine off for a bit, going to university instead, but it soon caught up with me so… I chose to join squalons, which is our naval branch, and spent a lot of time out at sea guarding our waters and slaughtering sea monsters.”

“Do you miss it?” Laila asks, tracing the rim of her glass absently, “being in service I mean?”

“Calante’s wrath no, it was  _ awful _ ,” Darius exclaims, taking an oyster from its neatly arranged platter. “I do however miss the sea terribly. I would spend hours in the water, catching all the food I could want and exploring the depths of the ocean. You should see it for yourself sometime, Your Radiance, it’s a whole other world down there. Entire civilisations built entirely to suit the sea — carried on the backs of whales that span centuries older than even myself.”

She bites her lip, her finger becoming tightly wound inside a curl as he speaks. “That sounds fascinating.”

“Oh, there are all sorts of things I could show you,” he says, sucking the contents of his oyster shell and licking his lips. “Sunken ships, secret treasure troves, underwater caverns full of giant squid. But my favourite and the one I think you’d like best is the show the sirens put on every year during midsummer. They turn docile and their scales go entirely bioluminescent as they do their ritual mating call to lure a partner. It’s… hypnotic, hearing their voices. It’s something that has to be heard to be explained.”

By now she has fully angled her body towards him, her chin resting deeply within her palm as her eyes glisten with interest. “Oh, I’d love to.”

“Perhaps one day I’ll get to show you,” he says, and it’s subtle, the way his hand eventually edges near enough to rest atop her own but she notices the warmth and weight of his fingers and turns up her palm to hold his hand.

“Ahem,” Lyra interjects, fragmenting through the seductive spell that had been cast around them. 

Laila retracts her hand away and reaches for a salmon roll. “I mean if it’s the ocean that you miss then there is plenty of that in Soleterea. I know a number of completely secluded lagoons you could visit, no civilisation for miles… nobody would ever find you.” She slides the delicacy into her mouth in a sensual fashion and chews softly, keeping her eyes on him the entire time. 

“I can admit that has a certain appeal,” he responds, the thin slits of his pupils now growing.

“Ah yes, sounds like the perfect spot to commit a murder I’m sure,” Lyra asserts audaciously, cracking a lobster claw with her hands. 

Darius fixes upon her with his eyes of aqua blue — as depthless and dangerous as the ocean itself. “I get the impression that there is something you’d like to say to me, Ser Lyra.”

A silence stretches taut between them like a fraying thread. 

Lyra is the first to snap it. “I’m just wondering what your angle is here. I mean you help us win the war, presumably, then you forcibly take the throne in Mortos and… then what? Finish what your father began only this time with intimate knowledge of our workings?”

Laila exhales deeply, her lips parting with petal-soft placations. “Lyra,  _ please— _ ”

“No, it’s alright.” Darius holds up a hand to halt her. “But if you must know, Ser Lyra, my only intention is to lay claim upon Mortos. I will want nothing of Vysteria after that other than an alliance, you have nothing to fear from me.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Somehow, I expected that,” he quips wryly in response.

Lyra whips her head round to Laila next. “And I don’t think you should believe him either, Laila. I mean, honestly. Don’t you think he’s been searching for a way to get your guard down from the very beginning? And you just… fold for him, just like that? A few pretty words and a roll around in bed is all it takes? I expected better from you.”

She feels a flare pure rage ignite in her chest, white-hot and simmering. She slams down her glass forcefully onto the table before she stands. “We’re leaving.”

“I haven’t finished speaking to him—”

“ _ Now _ , Lyra,” she snarls back, sharp as a spindle. “That is an order.”

Her shoulders stiffen, opalescent eyes glowing with defiance that she later snuffs as she rises up from her seat. “Thank you for dinner, Capiton,” she murmurs before clearing out from the room.

Laila places a hand to her temple, massaging it in light circular motions. “I’m sorry about that—”

“Don’t,” he says, then he takes her hand in his and presses his lips to the inside of her wrist. “You know she’s right to be suspicious of me.”

She cups his cheek in her palm. “I suppose this is goodbye then.” 

She leans in to touch her lips chastely to his before drawing back. 

He seizes her arm before she leaves. “Come back here and give me a proper goodbye kiss.”

He drags her by the arm to drop his mouth over hers, sliding his other arm around her waist to bring her closer — so close that the only thing she became aware of was the combination of their heartbeats. He walks her back against the wall to press her against it, his hips digging into hers to anchor her there as their mouths continue to collide with breathless intensity. 

He kisses her like he’d been desperate for it, for her, like he didn’t realise how much until their lips were joined together again.

She lets her eyes close as their hips grind against each other — a pleasurable throbbing growing between her legs — and at once she wishes that they were both shed of clothes and limbs entangled so that he could he lift her and take her against the wall then and there. 

The fantasy is extinguished when he pulls away from her to rest his forehead lightly against her own, his voice low and enticingly ragged. “You’d better go.”

She nods softly, giving him one final parting kiss before saying, “I’ll be back for you soon.”


	10. Lace

Laila climbs on top of the bed and tucks her legs beneath her, knees positioned outward, demurely arranging her hands in her lap. She then tilts her head to one side, allowing the effervescent halo that is her sunlit tresses to waterfall down one shoulder. 

Her beige skin is lustrous with the sheen of new glass — it glistens with an unearthly radiance as though she has been perpetually powdered with crushed diamond dust. Such are the qualities bestowed upon her due to her celestial origins, the fallen star that now lies embedded in the core of her fleshly vessel. And a lovely vessel it is, easily gloved inside the many silhouettes of her clothing. 

She is now sheathed inside [ sheer tulle camiknickers in pale pink with intricate gold-threaded flower detailing ](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/dc/06/50/dc06503d66ec939317abb4f3d53c064f.jpg). The rounded collar and puffed sleeves are endearingly edged with lace frills and a row of gold buttons descend down the front.

The undergarment is a recent commission from the exceptional talents of Aurora Guillory, her foremost lady-in-waiting. She can recall her unbridled delight at unravelling the silk bow of the pastel pink box and peeling back the layers of tissue paper to finally uncover it after days of waiting. 

Now she waits again, only this time to share her new frock with her chosen recipient as a celebration of his recent employment. She twirls a ringlet of her hair around one finger as she hears the sound of Darius’ footsteps on the stairwell entering the sitting room and quickly rearranges her hands in anticipation.

The footsteps grow as loud as her pulse when he finally enters the bedroom and finds her awaiting him on his bed.

“About time you got here, I was beginning to get bored,” she huffs through lips she’d painted the same soft candy-pink as her frock, finally breaking pose to twirl her hair once more around her finger. “So, how was your first day?”

He seems to remember himself suddenly as she speaks and closes the door behind him. He slides his hands in his pockets, scuffing the floor with his patent leather brogue. “How long have you been sitting there?”

“Long enough.” She shifts over to the edge of the bed and touches her toes to the floor as she walks over to stand before him. “I wanted to congratulate you, personally, on your new assignment and your service to this country.”

She untucks his tie from between the lapels of his jacket and slides the length of silk through her hand. 

“Well,” he says, a smirk appearing in every sharpened contour of his cheeks, “aren’t I fortunate?”

His answer is received with an abrupt tug of his tie as she pulls him down to kiss her. He responds instantly, his hands resting upon her hips to pull her to him as his lips glide over hers with the sort of tender refinement that can only come of a familiar lover. 

His fingers clasp the underside of her thighs as he lifts her, positioning her back against the door for balance as he begins to unbutton her camiknickers. As he does so, he begins to move his hand away from her thigh to replace it with his own between her legs as he attempts to unsheathe her from her frock. 

She emits a feeble sound as the warmth and firmness of his limb rests just exactly right against her and she begins to circle her hips against it, grinding on his leg with frantic abandon as his lips trace down the valley of her throat with a phantom subtlety that goes through her like a chill. 

A few more pumps with her hips and her orgasm arrives briskly, her body shuddering with it as she arches her back into him and clutches at his jacket for purchase.

“Couldn’t wait?” he asks, a thick laugh edging into his voice as he does so.

“It’s not my style,” she answers, her lips coiling into something downright mischievous as he carries her over to the bed and removes the garment with one swift tug, removing her knickers after it.

She cries out a girlish moan as he parts her legs to slide his tongue over her slick inner thigh and puts his lips to her clit in a kiss, sucking it gently. Her legs begin to spasm around his shoulders, her toes curling into his back as he continues to glide his tongue against her in long, broad strokes until she is on the brink again and the next wave of pleasure seizes her mercilessly.

He makes her come several times more with his mouth alone as her legs quake around him and she is filled with a pleasure-pain so exquisite it makes her see stars. 

“Are you trying to murder me?” she gasps, her neck arched rigid and suppressing a moan as he kisses a trail up her stomach and between her breasts.

“Think I’d have to exert a lot more effort to accomplish that, Laila,” he retorts, his smirk devilishly self-satisfied.

She squeezes her eyes shut, a groan of exasperation working its way up her throat. “Please stop talking.”

He grants her request and drops a kiss to her collarbone before rising up to look at her and it’s too much, having his eyes on her that way. Like being exposed to too much sun.

“Stop looking at me like that,” she insists.

His head tilts to one side in questioning. “Like what?”

With such unrestrained awe and adoration that she might start to wonder if she ever truly left the sky.

She cups the accentuated peak of his jawline in her hand, then grips his shoulder and switches them around so that she is on top. 

“Stay,” she commands him, pressing him down by his chest and removing his clothes with an enchantment. Then she turns away, exposing her back to him as she parts his knees to straddle him. She takes the base of his shaft in her hand and slides down on him, hearing him moan as he enters her. 

That only increases her pleasure as she begins to rock her hips, keeping a slow, steady pace as she slides his head in and against her—stroking his girth with her hand. She clenches her muscles around him to feel him enter her more tightly, the ridges on his head stroking against her with every glide—the friction like sheer electric as it slithers through her abdomen. 

She closes her eyes, sighing out in pleasure as his hands enclose around her waist. He fits her so perfectly, almost like he is made for this and it doesn’t take long for her to find her release quickly gaining strength. 

He keeps dragging his claws along the supple slope of her abdomen up to her breasts and over the oversensitive buds of her nipples, so softly that her body begins to quiver from it. Her neck arches as she comes again and it spreads through her like a fever. 

She rocks her hips against him, massaging his groin until he finds his own release, holding his gaze over her shoulder as she does so; her lip bitten between her teeth.

He wipes her off with a towel before grabbing her by the waist to pull her to him; crushing her to his chest in a bearish embrace. 

She clutches his forearm with her hands, nuzzling her chin into it before twisting around to face him. “You know you never told me how your first day went?”

“It was fine,” he says cryptically and kisses the tip of her nose. “Full of tedious laboratory jargon that I’d rather not bore you with.”

“In other words, you have been contractually forbidden from telling me anything.”

He smiles. “You are quite astute, as always.”

She smiles back, leaning in to claim his lips in a kiss as her leg snakes its way around his own. “Do you ever think about what’s going to happen after? To your father? To… Dominus?”

The soft lambency in his expression dims. “It’s crossed my mind.”

“And you’re okay with it? You have absolutely no reservations about how this is bound to end for them?”

He says nothing for so long that she doesn’t think that he will answer. He traces a finger along the outside of her thigh, drawing patterns across her skin as though he means to join together the star-flecks that glimmer across it. 

“I’ve made my peace with their losses long ago, it has to be done.” He looks up at her, his eyes ablaze with diabolical interest. “But I suppose the real question is… have you made yours?”

“I… just—” Her tongue turns to lead in her mouth, her words seeming hopelessly insufficient. “I’m just trying to understand what it is that went so wrong between you both that you would need Dominus dead.”

“It’s not about us, it’s not about hatred or bitterness… it’s just our ways. If I could count on Dominus to step down without a fight, perhaps my tactics would be different but I know that he will not and thus I must not.” He brushes a lock of hair from her eyes. “Did Dominus ever tell you about how we choose monarchs in our culture?”

She nods. “Yes, he says that when a rex takes the throne that you rule for as long as you see fit until you abdicate or are slain by legal combat.”

“And how many rexes do you think ever stepped down willingly?” His brow arches in irony. “I’ll give you a hint: not terribly many. Killing each other for a throne is something deeply embedded within our bloodline. It’s practically family tradition. I think both of us knew that in each other, deep down, regardless of me being a bastard. It’s why we were never closer, it’s harder… when you’re close.”

He traces her cheek with his thumb and she takes his wrist in her hand. “And what about me? About Soleterea? After you’ve taken Mortos… should we ever find ourselves once more in opposition. Would you hurt me, if you had to? Would you see it as something else that simply must be done?”

She feels him sigh against her, his brow furrowing. “I would never hurt you.”

Once there was a time she’d thought the same of Dominus. “How do I believe that, Darius?”

“I can’t make you believe it,” he says, touching his forehead to hers, “all I can do is show you every way I can until you do yourself.”


	11. Desk

Darius pinches the corners of his eyes as lethargy buzzes behind his lids like an angry hive, his thoughts aswarm around him like bees. For several months now he’d been enslaved to the laboratory and his commencing projects, trying in vain to perfect the final breakthrough he needed to make his mutations ready. In the end, he had found his salvation through the use of Solarite alchemy — their life-giving elixir which they had employed in the creation of their earthly bodies. A careful blend of ichor, amaranthum crystal and lightning had been all it took to shock the first gasp of breath into his engineered monstrosity. 

With that underway, the rest had been a blur of sleepless nights, scrunched up notes and the warm gurgle of crystal tanks as his malformations bridged their spines and sewed their ligaments together out of an amorphous mass of plasma.

He taps his charcoal rhythmically against the page of his workbook, surveying the detailed illustration he has poured over for his next invention. This one he intends to be a spewing creature that when faced with an enemy will spit wads of molten amaranthum crystal to the point of chemically dissolving the flesh of any daemonic entity: Occassi included. Their leather armour would do very little to dispel it and if he perfected the spewing range enough it could take several deaths before a dominator or a well-aimed arrow ever got close enough to kill it. 

Satisfied with his eventual design, he allows himself a celebratory drink of Mort whiskey — a fine vintage he had been fortunate to lay hands upon through a generous benefactor as a gift for hard work. He swirls the bouquet around his palate, sampling all the hidden notes of oak, tobacco and caramel concealed within the distillate before taking a longer sip. The liquor glides like silk down his throat and is a welcome warmth in his chest from all the constrictions he’d been having due to stress. He sets the glass down, determined to meet dawn with the beginnings of a new sketch when he finds his thought process suddenly derailed.

_ You seem to be hard at work. _

His charcoal snaps on the page from where he’d pressed too hard on it. A soft grunt of aggravation rolls up his throat before the voice is back in his ear, laughing at him. 

_ I must be going mad, _ he thinks. For it had felt like a long time, unreasonably so in fact, since he had heard that voice in his ear. That silvery birdsong with its dripping honey lilt. The one that he now recalls, with a sudden frisson of pleasure, how sensually it rolled over the vowels of his name over her tongue like candied fruit. 

_ You’re not going mad _, the voice assures him and, in not wanting to dismiss the simple logic of his mind, he can only come to one other conclusion. 

_ How are you in my head right now, Laila? _His tone is cautious, accusatory, for there is little he finds more unfavourable than the thought that he could be caught so off-guard.

_ I could always get in your head, silly _ , she taunts him and her laughter is an ephemeral ring in his ear. _ I just choose not to. _

Now he is even more disgruntled and he rifles through his mind for any other occasion he can think of that she might have invaded his head without him knowing. 

_ I do seem to recall there being one occasion where I’d dreamt you seduced me in the steambaths at the Citadel _ , he relays to her, leaning back in his chair with his fingers tented at his lips. _ I remember thinking it odd at the time that it had been so vivid. I’m guessing that was your handiwork. _

_ Guilty _ , she admits, though everything in her tone suggests she is anything but contrite. _ I suppose I had been testing to see how you would respond. You’d been so cold to me back then, I happened to get curious about you. I do promise you that was the only time. I recognise that people can find this… intrusive. _

_ No doubt, _ he thinks to himself, knowing that she will hear him anyway. _ How exactly does this work? _

_ I have to be within a certain range of a mind in order to be able to access it. Some are harder to enter, some are easier. It helps if the target is… already in some way predisposed to letting me in. _

At this, he swallows, immediately trying to keep at bay the flood of memories he’d had over the past few months when all he had done is long for her. Their trysts had grown frustratingly sparse in such a period and in the meantime he’d had to soothe himself with whatever sensual recollections of her he could muster. The shape of her in his hands, the feel of her lips, that sweet elixir of her perfume… all paled in comparison to the potency of the reality. And yet, perhaps she’d arrived to give him aid. 

_ I can’t sleep _ , she explains in answer to his thought pattern. _ I haven’t been able to for a while now. Lying in bed at this moment all I can think is… how much I’d like to have you next to me. _

He swallows suddenly, loosening the knot of the tie that clinches with his throat. _ Perhaps then you ought to come here, I could certainly do with the company. _

_ And what did you have in mind? _

He bites his lower lip in consideration. _ You walk through the door in your little satin nightgown and I’d kiss you, carry you over to the desk to bend you over the top of it before I push your gown up your thighs and slide my fingers in you. Slowly, at first. Gradually picking up the pace as you moan beneath me… perhaps I’d wrap my tie around your mouth. Just to keep other people from hearing how much you were enjoying it. _

_ You’ve given this a lot of thought, clearly. _

A smirk broadens across his lips. _ Or as an alternative, if you don’t fancy being taken from behind, I’d simply lift you up onto the desk and wrap your legs around my waist. _

_ Oh, so I have options? _ she declares in mock surprise and already he can envision the inquisitive lift of her brow as she tilts her head just so. _ How generous. _

He chuckles, not knowing which option he would prefer. The second at the very least gives him more opportunity to kiss her and touch her breasts. Though in the first he could kiss a trail between her shoulder blades in that way she likes before he takes her.

_ You’re being very unimaginative, Darius, _ she derides him in her sing-song tone. _ No reason we can’t ultimately do both. _

He feels himself hardening at the thought and crosses his legs together. _ Or we don’t have to do either option. We could just… talk. _

When he hears nothing but silence on the other end he starts to worry that she’d left him.

_ Would you like to?… Talk, I mean? _

He can only gather that is what had her seeking him out in this specific way to begin with. Moments stretch into minutes and his pulse begins to falter in alarm. _ Laila…? _

_ I’m still here, _ she assures him and his chest deflates. _ It’s nice to hear your voice again. _

He feels a warmth spread through his chest, lighter and smoother than the whiskey he had drunk. _ It’s nice to hear your voice too. _

_ And I don’t want to. Talk, I mean. I just… wanted you, somehow. _

There is something so heavy and sombre in her voice that he feels himself ache with it. 

_ I’ll find a way to be with you soon. I promise. _

Even if he had to tear countries apart to do so, he would. Just for the mere promise of her smile.

_ I know, _ she says in that subtle yet intricate tone she always has when regarding the depths of his feelings for her. _ I’ll see you soon. _

He finds himself clutching for the last fragment of her presence even after it leaves. With her absence confirmed, he sighs and looks down at his unfinished sketch finding that the lines were swarming before his gaze out of focus. He pours himself another glass of whiskey and downs it, allowing himself to languish to his tiredness in repose. 


	12. Picnic

The rose garden is congested with heavily perfumed exhalations from voluptuous blooms. Darius sits upon the alabaster bench of the pavilion where he and Laila had proposed to meet. Since proving himself through continued service to the country, Amira had graciously ordered his earlier security measures ‘relaxed’ to the point that he could now leave the tower freely without causing himself grievous bodily harm. 

He reaches for one of the gold roses that had encroached upon the wrought iron structure to claim their hegemony, marvelling at its growth. His relationship with Laila had undergone a similar form of blossoming and he never would’ve thought before he’d come here just how indispensable she would be to him in such a short amount of time.

He hears her footsteps on the pavilion as she approaches him in her [ white cotton frock ](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/2d/96/36/2d96369c36cb234f4ab2b9427d26da0c.jpg). The garment is a simple affair compared to the other ostentations of her wardrobe but she is beatific in it as she greets him with few adornments other than that radiant smile he can scarcely believe is just for him.

“Glad you could make it,” she says, elevating up onto her toes to peck his lips chastely. A gesture that is not out of sorts in the lands they now walk but he longs to take her in for a deeper kiss. “Come on, we’re going this way.”

“And where are we going?” he asks as she locks their elbows together, guiding him through the grounds of the palace. He notices that swinging on her other elbow is a wicker basket woven with flowers. 

He does not have to wait long to receive an answer as the stables come into view, signalled by the frail whinnies of unicorns. As he approaches near, however, the soft, talkative murmurings of the mounts soon escalate into a raucous cacophony of panicked screeches and cries. 

“Hey, hey,” Laila attempts to placate in her dulcet caramelised tone, approaching one unicorn, in particular, to grip his maw within her hands and smooth her hand over his snout. The animal would not be soothed however for it knows deep within the hindbrain where all the rudimentary instincts of flight or fight linger that something dangerous is near. 

“I’m afraid it’s my fault, princess,” Darius explains, head bowed in contrition. “Never was terribly popular with nature’s creatures.”

She turns to him over her bare brown shoulder, resting her chin atop it to fix him with a disapproving look. “I don’t suppose you have an off switch for that effect?” 

He spreads his arms out, shoulders lifting briskly into a shrug.

She sighs, taking the basket off from her arm to clip it to the unicorn’s saddle. “Well, this isn’t quite how I imagined that you would meet him but… Polaris was intended to be our steed for today. However, since he won’t get anywhere near you I suppose I shall have to be inventive.”

She steps towards him and slides her palms over his face, a few embroidered words expelled on a beguiling tongue before she steps back. The screeching stops. 

“What did you do?” he asks.

“Simple cloaking spell,” she responds, taking Polaris out by his braided mane adorned with wisteria. “Now they will no longer sense the Occassi on you… whatever form of _ essence _that happened to entail. I can’t tell how long it will fool him though so we shall need to move quickly.”

She lifts herself with fluid dexterity onto the mount and settles herself atop him in side-saddle position. Then she reaches out her hand for Darius to take and lifts him over the side so that he sits behind her. 

“I don’t suppose you mean to tell me where we’re going _ now _, do you?” he asks, encircling his hands around her svelte waist with ease as he leans his face into the glorious aureole of her curls and catches a whiff of gardenia and coconut oil. An indelible aroma that will forever leave its stamp upon his memory. 

“On a picnic,” she answers brightly and with a gesture of her hands, she tears open a mouth through the fabric of reality and rides them through its jaws.

It has been so long since he’d ridden that he almost forgets how much he misses Razer. He thinks of the oily sheen of his hippogriff’s wings and his taut, powerful muscles. The way he used to go for hours through the sky, always pushing faster and faster until his wings were a tenebrous blur of feathers and the wind whacked his face like a still wall. 

He’d had to leave him behind now. Like Dominus. Like Mortos. No doubt his father would’ve beheaded the beast and the thought sticks to the back of his throat like tar, tasting sour. He clutches firmer to Laila’s waist, thinking one day he is going to have to leave her behind too. He doesn’t understand why that pains him so. He’d been used to tearing out the pages of his past and leaving them to burn on a funeral pyre, remaking himself anew out of the ashes. When there was nowhere to belong to there was nothing to keep and so he had worn and discarded many aliases over a period of time, finding them ultimately ill-fitting. Brother. Lover. Son. Capiton. _ Bastard. _

That last one he had scrubbed raw from his skin until he bled but still it remained embedded in his scar tissue. He will never be free of that blight. It is hereditary, marrow-deep.

Being with Laila required no titles. There are no costumes to don and no pretences to bear. There is just her and there is him. He will miss the elegant simplicity of that, how in the carefree whirlwind that she had swept him up in he can, at last, allow himself to be portable to his own whims and desires outside of his father’s. 

He watches the wind carry the ringlets of her hair like streamers as they pass through the flanks of slender blondewood trees on either side, branches outstretched and swaying like an ovation — as though they have been waiting to usher her open-armed into their sylvan realm. He can’t think of many places where she won’t be greeted, smiled upon, perhaps that’s why it is so easy for him to smile with her too.

Eventually, they draw to a halt in a field of chartreuse grass. It is mottled with white daisies and poppies with ruffled petals in salmon-pink. The field slopes toward an open lagoon of transparent blue water which is coruscant with dancing flecks of sunlight.

Laila is the first to dismount, unclipping her picnic basket and setting it atop the velvet grass. The first thing she pulls out is her floral-patterned blanket which she unfurls atop the field and then she reaches in to produce more of her hidden goods: strawberry shortcake, lemon tarts and vanilla creme eclairs topped with violet icing sugar. There are little tea sandwiches garnished with watercress and pansies and lumps of goat’s cheese stuffed inside hibiscus flowers. She produces a bottle of raspberry lemonade scented with lavender stalks and two glasses, pouring them each a cup.

Darius slips down from her unicorn as the creature occupies itself by grazing the lush strands of grass situated before it. 

“You mentioned you missed the sea,” she explains, handing him the glass, “thought I’d bring it to you.”

Here, she gestures towards the flower-dotted field and static waters of the lagoon.

“It’s not quite the same as the water here is secluded from the ocean. It comes through a little channel in an underwater cave. But we are completely alone here, no life around for miles.”

He stops to take in the gentle wisps of air on the nape of his neck. “It’s breathtaking,” he exhales on the edge of a breath. 

“I always thought so,” she agrees, something nostalgic slipping into the curve of her smile. “Leander and I used to come here all the time during hiking. He always told me that I should bring someone here myself one day. Someone special.”

It rams through him like a blade, her words, how effortlessly she wields that sterling silver tongue like a sword against his hardened black carapace. Slicing through him, flaying him of all his impenetrable scales.

“Sure he won’t mind you bringing an Occassi to his special place?” he asks, taking a sip from his lemonade and sliding his tongue over his lips to savour it. 

“Maybe,” she says, clinking his glass against hers before she sprawls out onto the blanket, her legs tented beneath the thin barrier of white cotton. “But Leander isn’t here.”

His smile grows roguish in intent as he sits beside her and they help themselves to a small feast of Soleterean pastries — an indulgent coating of sugar and creme sticking to the inside of their ribs. 

It is when Laila bites into her third eclair in a row that he sees a small daub of creme had gathered at the corner of her mouth and he pauses eating his lemon tart to mention it.

“You have a little creme—” He gestures to the corner of his mouth.

Her forehead crinkles delicately. “Where?” she asks, darting her tongue out to navigate in his general direction.

“There.” He cups her chin, leaning in to claim the creme for himself as he puts his mouth to hers and lightly grazes his tongue over it. He hears her giggle wildly before his lips cover hers and what started as a rather innocuous gesture grows into a passionate kiss as he draws her body closer to him and hooks his fingers into her capped sleeve to pull it down.

She pulls away with a moan in protest. “Not yet.” She grabs his hands and returns them to his side. “I want to swim first.”

She unsheathes herself of her dress and follows it with the removal of her undergarments which she tosses away with a saucy smile cast over her shoulder. Then she runs down the slope of the hill and disappears beneath the surface of the blue water. 

He watches her resurface, her hair now a curtain of dark gold plastered to her neck, burnished beneath the glow of the sunlight. He begins to undress himself of his own clothes and walks down to meet her, diving into the lagoon with an elegant pose.

The water is about as warm and clear as it looks, no hint of salt in it. He rises up to see her swimming on her back, rippling swathes of water gathering around her chest and stomach. He grabs her by the arm, pushing her back against the edge of the pool as he kisses her as deeply and longingly as he’d been wanting to for an age. 

“Come to Mortos with me,” he breathes into her mouth when he finally parts from her.

She gazes up at him, her face quizzical. “What?”

“When all of this is over I fully intend to return to my country and claim it. I want you by my side when I do so.”

The once bewildered look suddenly splinters into one of sardonic mirth. “Are you insane?”

“Can you honestly say you haven’t thought about it?”

“You are insane,” she confirms, “Darius, you can’t expect me to leave my life and my country to go away with you.”

“I’m not asking you to leave anything, I’m simply making you an offer of a new life. A new country.”

“Well, I like mine just fine,” she huffs in response, her brow raising in dismissal.

It does something to him, that look, that he can’t help but feel his jaw stiffen in response to it. “I don’t suppose if Dominus had asked you that you would be reacting with such ire.”

“Oh wow,” she exclaims in disbelief, then she shoves him hard on his chest enough to dunk him entirely underwater. 

He sinks beneath like a stone before rising up with a sputter, clearing the film of moisture from his eyes. “Can you blame me for wondering?”

“Yes, I can. In fact, I can blame you for asking me something so ridiculous at all and expecting that I would do anything but say no.”

“Perhaps because I thought that you had reached the level where you were capable of returning the same depth of feeling that I have for you but clearly I overestimated—”

“It isn’t about what I feel or don’t feel for you, Darius, you are asking a lot of me. You have no idea just how much it scares me, the way I feel for you. A way in which I’ve never felt for anyone before in my life. It’s too much. You’re too much for me—”

He seizes her by the face and kisses her again, his hands sliding down towards her waist to pull her closer. He hears her moan against him as she pulls him in by the shoulders, her nipples stiffening against his chest as she returns the kiss with the same fervour. 

He curls his hands beneath her thighs to grip them, lifting them both out of the water before he carries her back to the picnic. He grips the edge of the blanket in his hand and hauls it, sending the empty plates and cups atop it in a crazed scatter across the grass.

He lies her down gently before climbing atop her to reunite their bodies in an amorous embrace, damp skin on skin. Then he parts her thighs and hooks her legs around his waist as their mouths move frantically together, positioning himself at just the right angle to glide his shaft along her clit. 

He hears her gasp out beneath him as he begins to grind his hips against her in circular motions, raising himself up onto his hands for better purchase. She arches her back up, her nails digging into the firm skin on his shoulder blades as he leaves kisses beneath her jaw and down her throat, burrowing his face into the crook of her shoulder before he embeds his fangs into her. 

Laila cries out again and the bite feels just as good as entering her. He laps his tongue over the open wound, sampling the sublime golden nectar that is her ichor as he releases his venom into her veins and feels her body wilt beneath him into tranquil bliss. 

They both reach completion together shortly after that and for a while, they can only slump against each other — hardening to stone in their satiation. He peels himself off from her to look down into her venom-blissed face, stroking away the damp strands of hair from her forehead. 

“I can’t come with you to Mortos, Darius,” she sighs out, her hand reaching lazily to touch his face. “I can’t.”

He lets himself exhale his disappointment, leaning briefly into her touch before he pulls her hand away. “Perhaps then it’s best if we… stop this now. For both our sakes.” 

Then he lifts himself away from her, not daring to look back as he begins to dress back into his clothes and wander into a cluster of trees to think. 


	13. Regalia

Days pass and she still haunts his thoughts. He finds himself dissecting every interaction they shared with surgical precision: every touch, every shared kiss, every time he had made her moan and tremble and she had done the same in turn. 

Had it been all lust then? Just a heightened stress response to the extreme conditions they found themselves in? He couldn’t say and it’s the wondering that plagues him, disrupting his thoughts when his mind should be focused on other matters. 

He has to wonder if that wasn’t the end goal: to keep him so entranced by her that he forgot to keep his guard up. He could almost laugh at how ridiculously easy it had been. Of course, she didn’t care enough about him ultimately. For this had never truly been about him than keeping him compliant so he would be all but a willing pet to the machinations of Amira. 

(But then he thinks about certain times she’d smiled at him, times when he’d held her as she cried and his conviction wavers.) 

He drags a heavy palm down his face and decides it best to simply scrub himself clean of her. The war has been rapidly making progress since his mutants entered the fields and with the Seraji army having now joined the ranks it is sure to be an easy win. After that, it won’t be long before he set sail back to Mortos and then he could leave her and everything about this sun-kissed city behind.

He had eaten his way through his fourth ham, cheese and apple galette when a presence on the stairs has him twitching in alertness. He recognises the scent of the person, faint as it is, like sunshine and lavender with a faint trace of rainwater. 

“You’re certainly an unexpected guest, Ser Lyra.” He turns to smirk at the Lightshield as she enters over the rim of his raspberry cordial. “I’m guessing Her Radiance sent you.”

“Laila doesn’t know I’m here,” she answers.

He takes a long sip of raspberry cordial as he considers how to respond to that. “So what is it that I may do for you?”

She steps further inside and he can hear the rustle of her swords at her belt. He doesn’t think that she is here to kill him, at least not in so conspicuous an area as this, but her eyes have very little kindness for him.

“I know that you and Laila are no longer… whatever it is that you were.” She leans her shoulder against the door, one ankle crossed over the other. “So I suppose I’m here for my own peace of mind, mostly, to make sure now that she’s no longer with you that you’re not going to go on some scorned lover revenge trip.” 

His voice crackles with a laugh, dry as gravel crunched underfoot. “You’re very amusing, Ser Lyra, anyone ever tell you that?” He finishes his glass and puts it down. “Wounded as my pride may be I still happen to have my eyes on the ultimate prize. My motivations have not changed in that regard, getting Mortos remains to be my one and only goal.”

“You see, the trouble is—” She pushes herself up from the wall inching ever closer and he knows how this game goes by now, he’d played it enough times himself. Come closer then, Lyra, let’s see what pretty eyes you have. “I still don’t believe you.”

“Well,” he says, raising his hands in a show of nonchalance, “can’t say there’s terribly much I can do for you in that regard.”

“Oh, but there is,” she assures him, her hand sliding slowly towards her belt, slow enough that one might not have thought to expect it unless they’d been watching her as intently as he has. 

He speeds towards her and snaps his manacle grip over her forearms, dragging her close to him as his canines descend in warning. “Anyone ever tell you that you shouldn’t brandish a sword before a beast unless you intend to use it? It makes us terribly upset.”

She tilts her head to one side, a smile raising faintly on her rosebud lips. “Oh no, riling you up is exactly what I was counting on.” Then she speaks a few soft words in a tongue he can’t decipher and blows a soft powder from her mouth into his face.

The enchantment invades him instantly, dulling his senses and dimming his vision until he is curtained in blackness. 

When the blinds are lifted from his vision he finds himself inside a tower not unlike his own. There is the same spiral staircase, the same constricted walls of pristine marble. Only instead of there being one room there are several — locked doors varnished in a blue pigment that looks to have been stolen from the sky. 

He nears the first step of gold-veined marble in caution, giving a quick glance around to locate any other exits before he calls out:  _ Where am I? _

It takes several moments for an answer:  _ This is known as the Dream Realm. It exists as a liminal space between the astral and physical plane. This tower is a gateway and through these doors, you will find the thing that you most desire.  _

At this, he chuckles dryly and shakes his head in disbelief:  _ You know that was a rotten trick to play, Lyra. If you wanted to see my wildest hopes and dreams all you really needed to do was read my diary.  _

_ Just step through a door and get it over with, then we can both be rid of each other. _

Seeing no other alternative to freedom he decides he may as well do as she says. 

When he first steps through the door he knows little of what to expect and for a moment there is nothing but a simple monotone of blackness. But then he hears the orchestral tones of Mortesian music, the insidious, solemn and soul-stirring resonance of it as his shoes echo atop floors of obsidian. Then all around him, he sees dancers pivot in their well-timed circles, the males in their garbs of velvet and gold-braiding and their feminine counterparts in their courtly gowns. 

He feels something swell in his chest at the sight of them, at the mechanical clockwork rotation of their waltz, whilst ghoul servers weave their way around them carrying their gleaming trays of whiskey and wine. 

“About time you got here,” teases a voice from behind him and he feels his shoulders tense in an amalgam of delight and anticipation as he turns to face her. She is lovely, of course, when is she ever not. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

She too is in court dress — a deep wine velvet embroidered with foliate motifs in gold. He glances at the diamond diadem atop her head punctured through with the congealed wounds of blood rubies that glisten with a wet sheen. It strikes him then how alike the regal headdress is to the one worn by reginas. 

“You look well,” he says, “Mortesian fashion suits you.”

“As it does you,” she says.

That is when he becomes aware of his own attire — the long coat embroidered with oak leaves in gold threading paired with a matching cloak with cream lapels. On his head rests the Mortesian royal crown he had often seen many times caressing the cranium of his father.

So, this must be his deepest desire then: him triumphant and fully decorous in Mortesian regalia. With Laila by his side.

“I must admit I am… shocked to see you here but not disappointed,” he says, framing her cheek with the same reverence as if she were real to him in that moment. “I suppose I just wish you could see this for yourself, see how things could be between us if only you’d change your mind.”

“Oh, Darius,” she says softly, almost yearning unless that is simply another trick of his mind. But then her expression distorts and her eyes turn cruel. “Did you really think that I could ever love you? Don’t be so silly. What on earth makes you think that I would ever feel that way about you? What makes you think that  _ anyone  _ could? What makes you think that you even  _ deserve  _ to be loved?”

He swallows, shifting his jaw to one side in acquiescence. “Maybe I don’t.”

He lets his hand fall from her instantly, his cheeks aflame and his throat clogged. Of course, he is foolish to ever think that she would deign to lower herself to him other than for a few carnal moments in the darkness. Isn’t that what he had been for? Just a brute to mount for a nocturnal visit and then sent away in the full brightness of day. She would never choose to stand with him, hand in hand, declaring her devotion to him before her country and coevals. And could he even blame her that? 

Perhaps it is he who had been wanting too high, reaching too far beyond his appropriate level. Perhaps, in the end, he was just… starstruck. Full of too much hope and promise for things he could never attain. 

_ Get me out of here,  _ he hisses towards Lyra,  _ you’ve got what you wanted. _

He sees the veil descend before his eyes again before it lifts from his vision and reveals him to be once more inside the sitting room of the Moon Tower. 

“Do you believe me now?” he declares, his eyes fixed in accusation towards Lyra.

“Yes,” she replies with a slight twitch in her jaw. Then gradually, she turns away from him. She makes it towards the doorway before she stops and turns back. “You know, Laila would never be happy in Mortos. Being with you would only ever be a slow poison for her. I hope you realise that.” 

Then she turns again, fully resolute in her righteousness and scales down the steps of the tower. 


	14. Red Wine

Night descends like a velvet shift over the grounds of the palace, sequinned with stars that blink into existence like a billion blinding eyes. This is a time for longings and lovers, for deals and devilry, where the first transmission of dreams and cast wishes are to be elevated up towards the sky for the perusal of their celestial guardians.

Darius steps out from the ink-stained shroud as he navigates his way towards the quarters of Amira. The impératrice had called upon him not so long ago for a clandestine meeting and so it is under the obscurity of the deep violet hours that he enters the palace and walks through the feeble-toned milk and honey palette of its interiors towards the stairs of Amira’s boudoir. 

He remembers the last time he happened to sneak into a lady’s quarters here and how that ended up, though he doubts his encounter with Amira will be anything so pleasant. 

There are no guards posted at the ornate doors so he thinks very little of simply entering through them. He sees that Amira is already awaiting him once he does so, in picturesque poise atop her raspberry velvet settee with a glass of red wine in hand which she is swirling absently when he arrives. 

“Close the door behind you, Capiton,” she tells him, taking a sip of her wine.

He does so and notices that the lighting is dim but for the waning lambency of candlelight. He walks to stands beside the empty seat across from her and as he nears he can see the sheer peignoir she had chosen to clothe herself in over the top of her satin negligee. Just out of bed or about to get in it, he would gather. 

“You requested me, Your Luminosity,” he says, hovering just over the seat and hoping she’ll have the grace to grant him rest. 

“Sit down,” she allows, with another conservative sip of her wine. “I thought I might give you an update on what is happening now with regards to our final movement towards Mortos.”

He nods, having heard little but whispers and rumours that he’d attempted to piece together. It will be nice to have it heard from the horse’s mouth at last.

Amira sighs. “As you might have heard we made an attempt on your father’s life and came away unsuccessful. Your… the queen, Vasilisa Calantia, was unfortunate collateral in this event. She perished under the assassination attempt but your father did not and now, well, now things have gone haywire.”

He inhales sharply before expelling it. Vasilisa had not been his mother but he had held nothing but quiet respect for her. She did not deserve to be slaughtered in a misdirected attempt to claim his father. But such is the curse of reginas, they live and they die by whatever face the coin of their rex happens to fall regardless of their choosing.

“That’s unfortunate,” Darius acknowledges, drained entirely of emotion. “Where is my father now?”

“Still in Mortos, where he remains in grieving last I heard. Your brother, he has sent to Seraj in order to retaliate. They know it was one of their spies we sent to attack and thus he now marches with a troop upon Zivar.” Amira swallows another gulp of wine and lifts the lid from the decanter to top it up. “What do you know of your father’s deathless state?”

Darius tents his fingers together, his mind battling away a horde of unwanted memories clawing into his immediate recollection. “I know it makes him nigh-invincible but for the heart that he keeps locked away inside of an egg. I didn’t understand just how invincible, hard to test this you see, but now that I know he is even immune to the effects of amaranthum I would say any further attempts you make on him will have laughable results.”

“I see,” Amira mutters, her lips sagging in disappointment, “well if he can’t be killed then he shall have to be caught. I was hoping that the spy would make quick work of him so that we could avoid this possibility but… it appears that we will have to launch a siege upon Gravissia to take him personally. I assume that you would like the honour of leading the charge for this mission?”

“Oh yes,” Darius says immediately, “very much.”

“I will have someone in contact with you so that we can begin planning a strategy of attack.” Amira sips her wine and runs her tongue over her lips. “You have done very well for us, Capiton, I thank you for your service.”

He bows his head. “And I thank you for the opportunity to prove myself, Your Luminosity.”

“I suppose you are looking forward to being home soon but I do hope you have managed to develop a certain… fondness for Soleterea during your visit.”

“It’s a very special place,” Darius replies without pretence, “full of beautiful things and beautiful people, you ought to be proud of it.”

“I am,” Amira says, raising her glass in salute, “and I do hope we can continue our productive relationship upon your ascension. I notice you and my daughter managed to make quite a pair when it came to appealing your case to Dr Mielette, without which you probably wouldn’t have received your opportunity to prove your worth.” 

His throat clogs and he finds himself wishing for a glass of wine to soothe it. “Princess Laila is… also very special,” he says, voice thickening with concealed emotion, “you ought to be proud of her too.”

She looks at him for an extended moment, her eyes searching. “I am.” She takes a long sip of wine, finishing it to the bottom. “You may go.” 

He stands, grateful for the chance to leave as he makes brisk steps towards the door. He opens it, stepping into the clear, unburdened air for a short breath before closing it behind him. Then he finds himself face to face with the last person he desired seeing.

“Snooping again, I see.” He observes the mane of Laila’s lascivious curls pressed up against the second door frame. “Old habits die hard.”

He begins to walk away from her without a second look. 

He hears her follow behind with her pattering footsteps. “Is it true?”

“Is what true?” He keeps his face forward, resisting the urge to look back at her before she overtakes him and obstructs the way. 

“That you’re going on the mission to capture Lanius?”

He sighs out, letting himself look at her the way he’d been avoiding all this time. The widened doe eyes, brimming with curiosity, and perhaps if he isn’t simply projecting too hard — a little concern. 

“Well of course I am, this is my score to settle,” he declares with an exaggerated gesture of his hands. “The Citadel is my home no one here knows how to breach it better than I do.”

He takes a step aside from her and she mirrors him.

“And you’re sure that’s a good idea?”

His brow furrows, aggravation gnawing its way somewhere deep inside his chest. 

“I know what I’m doing, princess,” he replies irritably as he picks her up by her forearms and deposits her out of his way. “Moreover, what does it matter to you whether I succeed or not?”

“Darius, just because I don’t want to come to Mortos with you doesn’t mean I don’t care about you. I—”

She takes his arm, pulling him round to face her and before he has a chance to react she has dragged him down by his face to put her lips against his. He hates himself for how instantly he yields to her as her mouth moves cautiously against his own before gaining enough confidence to deepen the kiss.

He closes his eyes, all the wound tension in his body softening as his hand slips as though by external puppeteering around her waist to pull her close. It would be so easy for him to lose himself in this for how badly he wanted it, wanted her to come and plead for him like she was doing now. He is quick to regain awareness of the situation, however, and pulls back.

“You shouldn’t torment me like this, Laila,” he sighs, his forehead resting wearily against her own. 

“Don’t go, please,” she says softly, digging her fingers into the lapels of his jacket as though that alone is enough to keep him near. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do,” he reaffirms, slowly detaching her hands from him before he turns away for the final time. “And my mind is made up.”


	15. Bath

The banishment of his father is a portentous event heralded by a grey, dismal outcry from the heavens above. 

Never before in his time here has Darius seen doleful weather in the lands that seemed permanently kissed by sun and yet the rain falls in a sepulchral parade of black ribbon, pummeling the earth and the flowers, beating all the animals into quiet submission. 

In the end, it is a subdued ceremony observed by an exclusive few. Amira renders a dimensional prison to trap him in the same way the fate of their god Calante is meant to have ended. Then a Lightshield selflessly tosses his life aside to ensure his concealment. 

He’d not had time to know Leander de Lis other than his importance to Laila and the name he shared in common with Lyra. So it is with little sentiment that he watches this foolish display of martyrdom but the answering cry of Laila seems to echo for miles as she feels acutely the severance between Lightshield and charge. 

It penetrates right through him, her pain, and he feels whatever instincts he thought he’d suppressed towards wanting her become viciously roused to awakening. He tries to soothe them into slumber again when he sees Amira approach beneath her black umbrella.

“I’ve just received word from Seraj that they have beaten back the last convocation of Occassi dominators with the help of your mutants,” she says, her rubicund lips raised in pleasure. “I’m afraid this doesn’t mean good news for your brother but it does mean that Mortos is now fully yours to claim. Congratulations, Darius Rex.”

He waits until the last of her clicking footsteps had fallen away before he lets his chest shudder with the depth of this revelation. Because now there is just him. Dominus dead and father exiled, there will only ever be him. He will return to a hall of phantoms. 

And he only… he only wishes he had someone waiting there for him to collect him into their open arms so that he might unburden his troubles. But he knows that it is not to be, that he will know no tender lover’s touch when he steps foot on the black sands of Mortos, only judgement and suspicion and wary. More than fully deserved. 

He conceals himself in the Moon Tower within the next few days, trying to settle what is left of his affairs here whilst he arranges for a ship by air or sea to deposit him back to the Citadel. He knows the Lightshields would still be holding the city until his return, to keep things settled, so he wants to make haste.

He is so distracted that he doesn’t even notice Lyra when she slips into his room, a potentially fatal mistake that he immediately curses himself for when he hears her voice.

“So I assume you’ll be on your way then.” 

His shoulders seize as he clutches onto one of the leather tomes he had been painstakingly arranging into alphabetical order inside his chest. 

“Yes, I will be. I’m sure you and the rest of your comrades will be satisfied to see the back of me.”

“Oh, I will,” she says, a touch more nasally than her usual tone and that’s when he realises she has just finished crying. “Listen, I— feel immeasurably foolish having to do this but you have to believe me when I say that I no longer know what else to do.”

He stands to full height as he turns towards her and sees that her opaline eyes had become clouded pink from tearfulness. She looks vulnerable in a way he has not seen her, it draws him like blood to a shark. 

“What is it?” he asks, brow quirked in questioning.

“Laila has not left her room for days,” she says, and he tries to avoid the way that rustles something in him. “All she does is cry since my father so… they were very close and… she won’t let herself be seen by anyone. I’ve tried my best but I just can’t give her what she needs right now, you understand. So, I’ve come to you.”

“Laila and I are no longer in a relationship,” he says, “you know that.”

“I do,” she affirms, “but I also know that she happens to regret the way that you ended things. I just think it would really help her get closure to move forward if you went and said goodbye.”

He exhales sharply in a laugh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “You can’t be serious.”

“In the end, I cannot make you go but I just thought seeing as you were once purporting to care for her that you might want to do one thing to set her mind at ease.” She raises her chin in disdain, her jaw set firm. “But now I see you really are just monstrous.”

He recoils at the sheer venom of her tone and watches as she pivots on her foot and walks down the steps to the exit. He clutches the book in his hand and sends it careening with a dash against the wall, watching it explode in a scattering of pages.

He massages his temples and sighs before collecting back up the pages with a mental note that he will glue them back together at the earliest opportunity. He closes the lid to his chest and sits atop of it, exhaling deeply, before he stands and marches with purpose down the steps of the tower and into the gardens.

He doesn’t know why he suspects that she will have left the doors to her balcony open or what foolish impulse caused him to check there, but when he sees the soft billowing of silk drapes yawning outwards into the breeze it is not long before he is scaling the unruly growth of climbing roses onto the landing.

He hauls himself with ease over the balustrade and finds himself peering into the stagnant gloom of her boudoir. The curtains are drawn and the only light that touches the room is whatever tendrils had snaked their way past the balcony doors only to be shunned away.

He steps through and sees the amorphous lump of her silhouette through the drawn drapes on her canopy bed and slowly inches forward to peel them back in order to reveal her. 

She does not rouse from her huddled position, her breathing a faint ebbing motion. She is clothed in one of her flimsy satin nightgowns that ripples faintly with every exhale rolling in from the balcony doors.

He speeds away to close the doors first before rushing back to her and touching a few dried curls of her hair, brittle from dehydration.

She only makes a soft sound in response, so meek and pitiful that he feels something in his chest drop with it. 

“Laila,” he says, dimpling the edge of the mattress beneath his weight as he sits on it. 

She lets out a snuffle as she turns, unravelling herself from the cocoon she’d made with her arms. “What are you doing here?”

“Lyra sent me,” he explains, “I wanted… to apologise for your loss.”

“Well, you came and you apologised,” she says with a sniff, her red-rimmed eyes hollow, “now you can go.” 

He clutches her arm before she can make a bid to escape him. “That’s not all I came here for.”

She exhales arduously. “Darius, please don’t do this to me right now.”

“I want to be here for you, Laila,” he says, swallowing before he manages to cautiously add, “if you’ll let me.”

He watches her deflate, her chest spasming with a hiccup and he gathers her into his arms just as her face begins to crumble into tears. “It’s okay,” he says as she begins to mewl her soft kitten cries. He cradles her to him with a shush as she trembles in his grip, resting his chin into her hair as he strokes it. “It’s okay,” he says again as her cries grow louder and more laboured and she rests her cheek to his chest, soaking his shirt. 

He holds her until her sobs begin to quiet and then he raises her face to him to brush her tears away with his thumbs. “Is that better?”

“Much,” she rasps weakly in response.

“Come on,” he says, gathering her up into his arms. “I’ll run you a bath.”

He carries her into the ensuite and sets her on the edge of the cavernous rose quartz tub as he spins the taps, perusing her extensive collection of bath toiletries before he selects a few fragrant oils and watches them swirl around the steaming water. 

He unhooks the straps of her nightgown and peels off the sheer garment with a strange sense of abashment for someone who has undressed her many times before now.

“Get in with me,” she tells him before unbuttoning his shirt. 

He lets her undress him as he slides down her undergarments and soon they are bare before each other as she climbs in first to settle into the tub. He joins her, nestling his way behind her as he surrounds her with his extensive arms and legs. Thankfully, the tub is such a size that it is not an uncomfortable fit for him and he strokes her hair as she leans back against his chest and sighs out in contentment. 

“This feels nice,” she says, nuzzling into his chest.

He hums in agreement as his arms encircle her waist to pull her near.

She strokes her fingers up and down his upper arm. “I didn’t think you would come back when you went to Mortos. I worried for you. I’m glad you made it.”

“So am I,” he says, his chest warming with the revelation of her concern for him. “I’m sorry to tell you this now but… Dominus is… well, he was unsuccessful in Seraj. So with him and my father out of the way that means—”

“You’re going back to Mortos,” she finishes with a sigh. 

“I’ll probably have to depart within the next couple of days—”

“Don’t,” she tells him, her fingers now clutching firmly into his bicep. “I don’t want to think about you leaving me right now.”

He buries his face into her hair and kisses the crown of her head. “I’m all yours until then.”

He holds her close in the cage of his arms until the water temperature depletes. Then he gets out of the bath, securing her in his arms as he lifts her afterwards and he carries her back towards the bed to set her on top of it. He sees her tremble like a fawn, her damp skin now iridescent with studded droplets of diamond dew. He takes a towel and drapes it around her shoulders, taking extra careful effort to dry her without touching her too firmly.

She raises her face up to him as he does so, her eyes intent, and he finds himself ensnared within her evening violet gaze as she leans in to graze their lips against each other.

“Stop,” he says, leaning back from her to catch a whiff of air that isn’t stained with her scent. 

“Just this once,” she says, her voice so thick with desire for him that it sends a throb between his legs. “And I won’t ask again.”

He closes his eyes, sighing out. “You know we can’t just do this with each other once, Laila.”

She only becomes more relentless in her pursuit as she flattens her hands against his chest, slowly slithering them down the expanse of his abdomen until he feels himself shiver with longing. 

“Please,” she begs in so feeble a manner that it feels almost cruel to refuse. “I just… I really need you right now.”

She kisses him again as her hands begin to travel further southward and it is only a testament to the iron core of his will that he does not respond.

Sensing his reticence, she stops and takes his face between her hands. “I know you miss me too, Darius,” she says, her lips ghosting the impression of a kiss with each word. “And I know you want me.”

He swallows, quenching the sudden thirstful hope in his throat that perhaps just possibly she meant it, truly meant it in the way that he desired her to. That she had sought the ghost of his company outside the scope of her most carnal fantasies as he had done her. He knows she doesn’t mean it though, not beyond the immediacy of getting what she wants. Still, he doesn’t take his eyes off her. 

“What did you miss?” he asks, almost despising himself for the way his breath suspends for an answer. 

“I miss the way that you touch me,” she says, taking his hands and allowing them to feel their way around her waist to map out the familiar incline. “I miss having your hands on me.”

And still, there is something in him that yearns for the affirmation that has been long withheld. Surely she who understands what it is to claw for the crumbs of a mother’s affection would be willing to nourish his starvation, and yet… 

“Is that all you missed?” 

“No, that’s not all I missed,” she says, before her lips are sealed against his and it is all he can do to surrender to her embrace and the bounty of physical affection she bestows upon him so abundantly and without restraint. 

“Just this once,” he says, contented for now to claim at least being the most palpable presence in her bed if not her heart and he knows only one way to ensure renewal of such a fact. 

He presses her down on the bed beneath him, pinning her wrists above her head as her legs encroach around his waist to pull him closer. Their limbs tangle further together as they kiss and he allows himself to give in to her a final time.


	16. Winter Roses

Winter had slowly crept its way onto the palace grounds and announced itself with a few wet shakes. 

Laila observes the spatter of it against the glass doors that open out onto her balcony, now kept closed in order to avoid being pelted with the fat, heavy droplets that shower profusely from the heavens above. 

She had been longing for a decent storm but the weather now is disappointingly tame and mournful, so it is with a heavy sigh that she ties back her curls with a pink ribbon and presents herself before her mother’s company in her solar. 

“Well, isn’t this a surprise,” her mother declares over a delicate bite of her cinnamon-scented fried toast. “I was starting to think I’d need to send someone to drag you out of your room.”

“Good morning, maman,” Laila responds with grace as she takes a seat beside her at the table. 

“Good morning.” Her mother raises her cup of coffee to her lips. “Finally decided to stop sulking, did you?”

She knows that is a bait and so she does not rise to it, instead helping herself to a cup of drinking chocolate and a lavender scone. “It would’ve been appreciated if you and Leander had decided to discuss it with me before making your decision, but I respect that you both felt you were doing what was best.” 

“That’s a far cry from your earlier response when you were screaming the halls down like a banshee but I am pleased that you eventually came around to my way of thinking.”

Laila clenches her fist as she feels a violent pulse of electricity surge through her veins and holds it until it passes. She picks up her cup with a steady hand and sips, closing her eyes in pleasure from the silken texture of her chocolate. 

“But you are looking… presentable now, at least,” her mother observes, biting into her toast with a punctuated crunch. “Any particular reason you decided to finally grace me with your company?”

A warmth floods her cheeks as she remembers being pinned on her stomach beneath Darius’ weight, his lips against her shoulder and his hand wandering down her stomach to reach between her thighs. “No reason,” she exclaims, sniping the memory before it can continue. 

She thought it would help if she drained him from her system but after he left she only became aware of the ever-present emptiness of her room, so silent it only seemed to grow loud with its vacancy and so she decided to depart from it. 

Even her mother and her barbed wire quips are preferable to being tormented by her own thoughts.

“Well, I suppose you’re timing is impeccable all the same. You’ve just missed Darius Calantis as he’s left for Mortos.”

She tries and fails to stop the lurch in her chest from emerging. “Oh? Already?”

“Just this morning in fact,” her mother elaborates, buttering her scone with broad strokes of cornflower butter, “I know just how fond you became of him, so I thought that you might like to know.”

She feels her face begin to fall and takes great pains to prop it up into the radiant smile her mother would expect from her. “Thank you, maman. It was very kind of you to let me know.”

She rises up from her seat, dropping her scone unfinished on her plate.

“And where are you going?”

“Not hungry all of a sudden,” Laila answers remotely as she drifts out of her mother’s solar and into the hallway. She collapses against the wall and slides her hands into her hair. She can feel a scream rising up her throat but she obstructs it, biting down hard on her lip until she bleeds and the desire deflates. 

Outside, the rain had begun to falter to a pitiful sputter so she thinks nothing of picking up her skirts as she rushes out into the drizzle — the scant needles of rain dissolving into beads against her skin as she runs to the tower. 

Under the dimmed gloom of the sky, the marble bricks had been sapped away of all their glittering character and had adopted a grey surliness that seemed especially unwelcome to visitors. She cranes her neck up towards the lone window and finds it blackened with absence, no signs of any life that might stir inside it.

She climbs the myriad of steps and enters the room to find all of it, everything, pristine — as though he had never disturbed it. Something about seeing that confirmation only sends her mother’s earlier words hurtling to the forefront of her mind and she releases a soft gasp as though backhanded, a few hot tears rolling down her cheeks. 

She dries them quickly, sucking in the burgeoning bloom of a weep before it can reach full growth and swallows it down. Then she closes her eyes and just lets herself shudder through the strength of her restrained outburst as it rolls through her in waves.

She finds herself wandering towards the rose garden shortly after. 

Upon discovering the alabaster bench still damp, she casts an enchantment to dry it before slumping wearily on top of it. Even in winter, the gold roses are still vicious in their vibrancy and she lets her fingers trail across the lustrous petals with a smile and a little lift in her chest, something telling her it will all be okay.

“Thought I might find you here.”

Her head whirls around, loose curls batting against her face as she sees him standing there — his broad figure eclipsing the opening of the pavilion. 

She blurs her way into his arms in an instant, clutching him to her as she flattens her cheek against his chest. “My mother told me you left,” she murmurs, pausing to inhale the scent from his shirt as she clutches him tighter.

He rests his chin against her hair, kissing it briefly. “Not yet.” He takes her face in his hands and brings it up to face him. “I wanted to see you first.”

She exhales in relief, a smile broadening her lips as her hand encloses around his wrist. “Thank you.”

He smiles back at her, a hesitancy flickering across his features. “I admit, part of me wondered if I still couldn’t convince you to leave with me.” 

She nuzzles his palm as he strokes his thumb against her cheek, finding herself wanting to tell him so many things but when she opens her mouth to speak her tongue only trips itself over the barrage of words unspoken.

Her silence, however, appears to tell him all he needs to hear.

“I know you’re not ready to come with me, Laila. But perhaps one day, a decade or so down the line, you will be. I have to hope.”

He leans in to kiss her forehead before letting his hand drop from her cheek with a parting smile. 

She watches him leave without a word in response, a sheet of tears clouding her vision.


End file.
